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. _ e €siabtishmentof 
U^au)and Ovdevon 

meWestevn^lmns 




WM.DEVENy 

Author and Publisher 
Portland, Oregon. 



oirn 



The Establishment 
of Law and Order 
on Western Plains 




By WILLIAM DE VENY 
Portland, Oregon 

1915 



Optimist Print, The Dalles, Oregon 






PREFACE. 

When I began to write this little book 
I did so with the intention of having about 
one hundred copies printed to be used by 
my family and myself for gifts to a few 
personal friends. As the book grew and I 
went over the old scenes with my wife and 
children we began to feel a tingling in our 
veins — the return of the wanderlust fever. 
As the weeks lengthened into months and 
the springtime came on, a time of year 
when the great outdoors calls to us one and 
all, my wife said to me one day, "Let's go.'' 

lip to that time I had said nothing to 
any member of the family about "going," 
none of them had said anything to me ; and 
yet I soon found that we had all been laying 
plans towards again taking to the road. 
Yes, the old fever of wanderlust, handed 
down from our forefathers, is not to be 
kept down by such sordid things as busi- 
ness and convenience. 

Had we been less fortunately situated 
here in Oregon I might not be about to start 
upon the trip we have planned. Bi^ a kind 

A4nil47 W-O-^l 



MAY 27 1915 



providence has guided all of our actions 
since we came to Portland on a beautiful 
June day in 1893, when the roses were in 
bloom and the whole city looked to us like 
a fairyland. I thought that day that it was 
the most beautiful place I had ever seen; I 
now know it is not only such but one of the 
loveliest cities in this country. When my 
family .and myself arrived here twenty-two 
years ago the city had a population of 
46,000 people ; at the time this book is going 
to press we have almost 800,000. In June, 
1893, the state of Oregon contained 317,000 
people ; now we have 750,000. 

I have resided in many places in many 
states, as a perusal of this book will shovv% 
but this Oregon country beats any place I 
ever saw. I do not say this simply because 
my family and I have here accumulated a 
goodly share of worldly goods since we 
came here — I say it because I see on every 
hand people who came here a few years ago 
with nothing in the way of capital and are 
today independent. 

I am now speaking of Oregon as a 
whole; and Oregon is an empire in extent. 
It is twice as large as the state of New 
York, twelve times as large as Massachu- 
setts and 88 times as large as Rhode Island. 
We have one county, Harney, which has 
practically the same area as the two latter 
states combined. For the size of the state 

3 



our population is very small, but it must be 
remembered that the great Mississippi and 
Missouri valleys, the eastern slope of the 
Rockv Mountains and the fine states of 
Montana, Utah and Idaho to the east of us, 
and the states of Arizona and New Mexico 
to the south-east, have been calling as loud- 
ly for settlers as have we. Then Califor- 
nia, bordering us on the south, and Wash- 
ington on the north — those two states have 
been fortunate in being cobwebbed with 
railroads and have taken population that 
would have normally come to Oregon. 

Remember I came here the year prior 
to the 1894 panic. For the three following 
years Portland, like the balance of the 
country, practically stood still. So I began 
here under very unfavorable auspices ; one 
can come here now and start in almost any 
sort of business or take part in any occupa- 
tion suitable and do better than I have done 
in the same length of time. From all over 
the state the cry comes for more people on 
the land, and it is people to go on the land 
that we hope for from the crowded states 
of the East. 

If Oregon was populated as densely as 
New York we would have 18,250,000 souls 
in our state ; if we had as many people to 
the square miles as Massachusetts has we 
would have a population of 40,000,000! 
And with the population of 509 per square 

i 



mile that Rhode Island has we would have 
48,385,896 inhabitants! Just think of it! 
And our soil is capable of maintaining five 
people where the Massachusetts or Rhode 
Island soil would not sustain more than 
one! Why, dear reader, there is no such 
land, no such seasons for crop growing east 
of the Rockies as in Oregon. Our Willam- 
ette Valley alone will one day produce more 
crop values each year than all of New Eng- 
land and New York combined. 

Oregon ought to be and will some day 
be the wealthiest state per capita in the 
Union. We have more latent advantages 
than the Middle West. We have one river 
that could furnish more power than all of 
the streams in New England and the 
Southern states combined. This is the Des- 
chutes, which flows into the mighty Colum- 
bia, the grandest river in the United States. 
We have seven rivers about the size of the 
Hudson River that rise in our state and 
discharge their waters either into the Co- 
lumbia or the Pacific Ocean, not a drop of 
the water arising in nor passing into 
another state. 

We raise the finest fruit in the world — 
and our growers have taught the apple 
growers of the United States how to plant, 
cultivate and prune orchards and how to 
grade and pack the fruit. Our Spitzen- 
berg, Newtown Pippins and many other 



varieties of apples are sold in every civil- 
ized nation on earth, and bring the highest 
prices. For dairying Oregon offers better 
inducements than any other part of the 
country, for we have green feed, all-winter 
pasture, for our herds in over half of the 
state. That is why two of the largest milk 
condenseries in the world have within re- 
cent years, one of which is now doubling 
its capacity, located here. 

We have more different kinds of cli- 
mate than any other state. We have snow 
capped mountains where the thermometer 
may register 25 below zero in June ; a short 
walk down will bring you to as lovely roses 
as v/ere ever plucked; down a little farther 
you will find the temperature in the 80's. 
We have places where the rainfall reaches 
as high as 100 inches a year — and in those 
neighborhoods are our most prosperous 
dairies, in many of which the cows each net 
their owners $125 per year. Then in the 
irrigated sections there are places where 
the precipitation sometimes falls as low as 
six inches per annum; but with irrigation 
the landowners there get from three to five 
cuttings of alfalfa a year, and these arid 
sections are now becoming famous for all 
sorts of small fruits, as well as for all ani- 
mal industries and dairying. 

All over the state there are openings 
for the intelligent, the thrifty, the honest 



and the industrious man or woman who 
wants a home, and particularly the married 
man or woman who is looking for a place to 
educate the little ones. For we have one 
of the finest school systems in the country. 
And the whole state is dotted over with 
churches, every demonination being repre- 
sented in almost every county. 

When I think of these things, and 
think of what I am about to do — pack up 
with a part of my family and leave — I won- 
der what sort of a creature I am, and hark 
back to my great-grandfather Pierre as he 
tramped towards France from Poland 
through the snows with the remnants of 
Napoleon's army and imagine that there 
was some sort of an attraction in that 
journey that left its virus in his veins, to 
be handed down to his descendants. 

But I am not leaving here for good. 
No, I never will forsake Oregon. I am 
leaving my property behind and two of my 
children to run our business and look after 
our affairs until our return. Soon my 
wife, our daughter Estella and our son 
Dewain, together with your humble ser- 
vant will hit the trail for a journey of sev- 
eral thousand miles to cover a period of 
several months. 

Perhaps on this trip we can do some 
good for our adopted state, our dear Ore- 
gon, by inducing now and then a settler to 



come and become one of us. Which would 
not only benefit Oregon but the persons 
that came to join us. The time to come is 
right now, while land values are low and 
opportunities great. 

Very truly, 
Willian Deveney. 
150 East 80th St. North, 
Portland, Oregon. 
April, 1915. 



8 



CHAPTER I. 




HIS book might bet- 
ter, perhaps, ^ have 
been given the title of 
"A Child of the Wan- 
derlust," for it deals 
with my life, which 
has been an eventful 
one from the time I 
was fifteen years of 
age up to the present; 
and I intend that it 
shall so continue for I expect to die with 
my boots on. I came naturally by my no- 
madic traits, I inherited them from my 
forefathers and no doubt the actions of 
those known to me were but a repetition of 
the acts of their forefathers. 

In tracing my genealogy back through 
my ancestors I have never been able to go 
farther than the rise of Napoleon, owing' 
principally to the difference in names. For 
I find that the cognomens Deveney, Devin- 



9 



ny, Devmne, Devney and DeVeney, as well 
as Devenny and even de Veney, are prac- 
tically interchangeable and signify the one 
lamily. Just which is the proper name I 
do not know further than that we read 
there were three brothers of the name of 
DeVeney with Napoleon in his campaign 
against Russia. One of these was an 
omcer of the line and must have been 
rather close to the Little Corporal for I find 
that on the retreat from Moscow, when the 
Napoleonic sun was setting, one Pierre 
DeVeney was decorated with the cross of 
the Legion of Honor and his two brothers 
mentioned for bravery on that terrible 
march, which cost Napoleon almost five- 
sixths of his army. 

This Pierre DeVeney later went to 
inlanders and while there the change in 
spelling of his name to Devenev occurred 
perhaps by design, perhaps by accident! 
i5ut I have been able to find that he was an 
honorable man who was somewhat of a 
rover, for later he went to England and 
nnally to Scotland, where he was married 
to an old sweetheart from his beloved 
1< ranee, for that he was a native of France 
^"a that his birth occurred in the year of 

I uJ ^^ ^^^^ ^^^^ *^ *^^c^ beyond a 
doubt. As to the younger brothers of 
Pierre who were with him on the retreat, 
1 have been unable to discover what became 

10 



of them ; that they and my paternal ances- 
tor parted company soon after the return 
of the Legion seems undoubtedly true. 

This Pierre Deveney was my great- 
grandfather. He was not married until 
late in life and died in Pennsylvania in 
1828, having come to this country soon 
after his marriage. My grandfather and 
father were born in Pennsylvania, the lat- 
ter in 1818. My father was married in that 
state in 1845. Soon after his marriage he 
removed to Henry County, Illinois, where I 
was born on December 18, 1852. 

In reading of my ancestors I find that, 
while they were not great men, they always 
stood on the side of law and order and 
never were in any sort of trouble arising 
from disobeying the laws of the land where 
they resided. That they never accumulat- 
ed any great amount of property is true, 
perhaps for the reason that they never re- 
mained long enough in one place to do so; 
and yet they were far from paupers and 
probably enjoyed life more than many of 
their neighbors who had more money. 

I was unfortunate enough to lose my 
mother when I was only nine years old. 
Up to that time I had been happier than 
the usual run of children for my mother 
was a woman of great charm and I was like 
the apple of her eye. I had three brothers 
and one sister and after the death of my 

11 



mother my father found it difficult to man- 
age the family, so a year or so after her 
death he married a widow who had quite 
a family of children. 

I am not going to say a word against 
my stepmother for the chances are that the 
reason I did not get along with her was due 
as much or more to me than to her. But I 
remember very distinctly that we did not 
get along peaceably and that before I was 
ten years old I was sent out to sort of hustle 
for myself. But I must not permit myself 
to pass over this period of my life without 
saying something more about my mother, 
who was, I have always felt sure, the sweet- 
est, dearest, most patient and charming 
woman on earth. Even though I was only 
nine years old when she died it seems now, 
as I look back, that I must have been a good 
deal of a man, at least in her eyes, for I re- 
member very distinctly how she would 
very often take me in her arms, cuddle 
up on a sofa or in a chair, and talk to 
me like a sister or a dear friend and advise 
with me as to my future and tell me how it 
would not only be the best and wisest thing 
to always be honorable and truthful but it 
would bring me the most happiness. And 
when I was put in my little crib at night 
and the bedding tucked in around me, and 
after my little prayer was said, she would 
kiss me and call me mother^s little man 

12 



and say she knew I was going to be a great 
comfort to her all of her life. At such 
times I remember w^e both shed many tears, 
tears which I believe cleansed both of our 
hearts. 

My stepmother was, no doubt, a very 
good woman and wanted to do her whole 
duty to my father and his children, but 
having children of her own, whom she 
loved perhaps as my own mother loved me, 
she found it difficult, even impossible to 
treat us all on an equality. At least it 
seemed so to me and my home life became 
unbearable, boy that I was, and I left home 
for good and all. I tell you it is a terrible 
thing for a boy or girl to lose his or her 
mother. I suppose it is worse for a girl 
than a boy, but it is the greatest blow that 
can befall either. Many boys and girls do 
not realize this fact and do not treat their 
mothers as they ought to be treated. I can 
only say to such young people that for 
every harsh or cruel or unkind word a boy 
or girl says to his or her mother there is a 
day of reckoning coming and a punishment 
will surely be meted out to pay for it. It 
may not come for many years, it may not 
be recognized when it does come; but just 
as sure as there is a God in Heaven the 
First Commandment means as much if not 
more than any of the other nine and the 
first six words of that commandment are 

18 



Honor thy father and thy mother. While 
the commandment must be taken as it 
stands, meaning that both parents must be 
honored, it has seemed to me that the hon- 
oring of the mother is of more importance 
than obeying the father, not, of course, rec- 
ognizing any cause save absolute dishonor 
for swerving one iota from the whole com- 
mandment. 

A boy without a father to guide him is 
like a ship without a captain; a boy without 
a mother to love, counsel and advise him is 
like a ship without a rudder. And I surely 
have seen this exemplified many, many 
times during my life and in my own case 
it was literally true. Young as I was when 
my mother died I know now that I became 
a changed boy almost at once, certainly as 
soon as my new mother, as I was told she 
was to be to me, made her appearance in 
our home. Assuredly some step-mothers 
have the faculty of taking their step-chil- 
dren right to their hearts and making them 
feel that the real mother's place is to be 
completely taken and the measure of the 
real mother's love to be more than filled. 
Yes, there are such women, God bless them. 
I have seen them, have known them, and if 
there is a chosen spot in heaven reserved 
for the best beloved of Jehovah then surely 
many of these proxy mothers will sit there 
close to the Savior. 

14 



When I left home I went to work doing 
chores for my keep and schooling with a 
farmer by the name of Morse, and remain- 
ed with him until I was nearly twelve years 
old ; then the real wanderlust struck me and 
I began my Nomadic career which lasted — 
we will see later how long. From the time 
I was twelve until I was nineteen years old 
I had almost as many occupations as I lived 
months. I was some of the time working 
on a farm for my "board and keep" and a 
little schooling during the winter. Then I 
went with a circus and did about every- 
thing that a lad of my age could do. This 
was a rough life among rough people, a life 
that every young fellow should try and 
steer clear of. From the circus and its side 
show I drifted into a minstrel company, a 
set of barnstormers, and this was about on 
a par with the circus. With both of these 
companies I filled about every position that 
a boy could be expected to fill, aside from 
being a professional performer. 

Let me say right here that in this 
career, which lasted seven years, and car- 
ried me all through the eastern, southern 
and middle western states, I kept honest 
and sober. And those good habits kept me 
from getting into trouble, with also the re- 
membrance of the teachings of my mother. 
But even with her words ringing in my 
ears, and with all the stamina I possessed, 

15 



I am sure I never could have kept myself 
as morally clean as I did had I not from the 
very first fought shy of evil companions. 
In all of my life I have made it a rule to 
" flock by myself" unless I could find good 
company to flock with. One boy, one young 
man, one man of scarcely any age, very 
rarely commits a crime entirely unaided; 
nine times out of ten the start in crime is 
rnade jointly by one or two young fellows 
aided by an evil companion who started his 
career in the same way. I always knew 
this I guess. Perhaps my mother taught 
it to me, surely she taught me the principles 
that led to my resolve. 

Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of times 
when I was wandering over the country, 
often not well clothed or well fed, many 
times hungry and footsore, the temptation 
has been strong to join with others in some 
alluring enterprise by which we could make 
a ''bundle'' of "easy money.'' But the ways 
to this "easy money" I always found were 
very crooked, and I wanted to keep 
straight. When I was very young, at my 
mother's knee perhaps, I had this thought, 
founded upon some words from Epicticus, 
impressed upon me, never to be forgotten: 
"When a thing is straight it is straight; 
there are no degrees of straightness ; but a 
thing can be crooked in as many ways as 
there are stars in the heavens." 

16 



So I always resolved that I would be 
straight and to best keep myself so I knew 
the easiest way was to associate with 
straight people. Or, to take the matter up 
from the other angle, I knew, I seem always 
to have known, that the surest and quickest 
way to get crooked was to associate with 
those who either were themselves crooked 
or were associating with others who were. 
And I have kept straight. It has well paid 
me, so well that I would say to all boys and 
young men that nothing in the world pays 
as big interest or as heavy dividends as 
being straight. 

CHAPTER II 

When I had reached my nineteenth 
year, which was six years after the close of 
the civil war, or about 1871, 1 found myself 
back in the neighborhood of my old home. 
One of my uncles and his family were con- 
templating a removal to central Nebraska, 
there being then quite an exodus going on 
from the valleys of the Ohio, Mississippi 
and even the Missouri, to the plains states, 
such as Kansas, Nebraska, Wyoming and 
eastern Colorado. So I decided to go with 
my uncle's outfit. But affairs turn out 
different in this world from what we ex- 
pect, and a word lightly spoken by one of 
my cousins caused me to change my plans 
and strike out by myself. 

17 



I bought a ticket over the Union Pacific 
railroad to Omaha, where I had to change 
cars to get to the new town of Hastings, in 
Adams County. I went to a hotel and ask- 
ed for a room for the night. I was sent to 
one with three beds in it. I objected and 
asked for a single room, but none was va- 
cant, the landlord saying he more than like- 
ly would not have to put anybody in with 
me. Anyhow I thought I was pretty well 
fixed for any wild west troubles that might 
come up, having a terrible weapon of de- 
fense and offense in the shape of a .22, 
which I carefully loaded and placed under 
my pillow. I soon dropped off to sleep and 
was in the throes of a terrible dream. I 
thought I was on a field of battle awaiting 
a terrific onslaught from the enemy which 
was sure to come off the next day. So I 
was taking a little rest trying to sleep on 
the ground with a cannon under my head 
as a pillow — when I awoke with a start to 
find myself grasping my .22 and the land- 
lord ushering in two strangers, both of 
them pretty full of booze. As soon as the 
landlord left they began to undress, mean- 
time talking about some terrible shooting 
scrape they had been mixed up in that 
night. I was taking it all in and wonder- 
ing what they had been shooting with when 
presently each one of them unbuckled a 
belt from about his waist and in each belt 



18 



were two .45's which compared with my .22 
about as a war ship of the Dreadnaught 
class compares wath a Missouri River cat- 
fish boat. 

Say! I immediately lost confidence in 
that .22 and in myself and a cold sweat 
broke out all over me. I was sure I was to 
be murdered before morning. But noth- 
ing happened, the greatest disturbance 
coming from the beating of my heart which 
was making so much noise I was sure it 
would awaken everybody in the hotel. 
After awhile both of the strangers fell 
asleep and pretty soon I got up as quietly 
as a mouse, dressed myself full as quietly, 
and was soon out on the street with my 
gripsack — and my .22, in which I had lost 
all confidence. 

I tell of this event not because it was 
anything out of the ordinarj^ in any way 
whatever but just to show how awful, 
awful green I was. I had come from a 
neighborhood where only the very toughest 
rowdies carried a "gun^^ as we called the 
little .22s like the one I h?.d. I surely never 
thought of carrying one or even owning 
one. But when I started for the ^'wild and 
woolly west," where it was supposed by my 
neighbors every man went armed to the 
teeth, why I just had to have a "gun'' for 
the protection of my life and property. So 
after much cogitation and shopping I 

19 



bought a second hand .22, and two boxes of 
cartridges. I tell you the first time I load- 
ed that weapon, placed it in my hip pocket 
and went out on the street, laying myself 
liable to arrest at any moment of the day 
or night for carrying concealed weapons — 
I can tell you I felt like a bad, bad man. I 
remember as I walked along the streets and 
passed now and then an officer how I 
laughed to myself to think what a chump 
he was, how little he knew — and wondered 
what he would think if Fd unlimber my 
gun and commence shooting up the town. 
And sometimes, as I felt back in the pocket 
to see if the precious gun was safe, I felt 
that I just must begin shooting at some- 
thing just to show the people of the town 
what a bad, bad man they had among them. 
This story will be read no doubt by 
many young men who are just about as 
green as I was and who are "packing a 
gun" as the saying is, most likely an inno- 
cent little .22. Let me say to any who are 
committing such folly that the idea of keep- 
ing out of trouble by carrying a shooting 
iron of any caliber is all nonsense. Revol- 
vers have caused more trouble to those who 
owned them than to anyone else. You can 
take it from me, and I have been in many a 
tight place in my life, that the less you have 
to do with pistols of all descriptions the 
better. 

20 



Leaving Omaha I made my way to the 
little town of Hastings, on the Burlington 
railroad. It was a typical western fron- 
tier "city/' consisting of a sort of hotel, a 
post office, blacksmith shop, "store" and 
three or four saloons. Like every other 
place along the road Hastings was a "city 
of destiny,'^ bound to become a metropolis 
within a very few months. Speculators 
were busy staking off town lots and selling 
them, with a sort of guarantee, but not 
quite a legal one, that for every dollar in- 
vested the purchaser would receive any- 
where from one hundred to five hundred 
within thirty days, three months at the 
farthest. 

I remained in Hastings, doing such odd 
jobs as I could find to do, until my uncle and 
his family arrived. After looking over 
various sections near by my uncle took a 
homestead on the Little Blue river. I was 
not old enough to take up government land, 
so I alternately visited and worked until 
the following spring when I went into the 
locating business, the inrush of settlers be- 
ing considerable. I had learned much 
about the country during my short stay and 
made pretty good money from the start, 
and as soon as I was old enough took up a 
claim of 160 acres on Crooked Creek, in 
the same neighborhood. About this time 
I met a gentleman who had a recipe for a 

21 



corn remedy and I began experimenting 
with it the result that I soon became more 
expert chiropody than anybody in those 
parts. Then I began to take trips to Oma- 
ha, St. Joe and other cities nearby, mean- 
time going on with m.y experiments as a 
chiropodist, an occupation I now determin- 
ed to follow and a profession in w^hich I 
made up my mind to excel all others. 

I visited laboratories, consulted chem- 
ists and physicians, studied anatomy and 
medicine, put in practically all of my time 
for two years endeavoring to formulate a 
way of removing corns instantly, painless- 
ly and permanently. 

I must digress here for a few para- 
graphs to show that in my labors in my pro- 
fession I have met with greater success 
than any person I know of, and my two 
daughters, a son and myself have built up 
the largest business in our line in the West. 
Our offices are in the Gerlinger Building, 
in Portland, Oregon, where we have an 
elegant suite of rooms, which are practic- 
ally filled by patients from nine o'clock in 
the morning until six o'clock at night, and 
in addition I fill an average of twenty out- 
side appointments every day. 

For several years I alternately worked 
at my profession, traveling around among 
the cities of Nebraska, Missouri, Kansas 
and Iowa, and living on my homestead. In 

22 



the late fall of 1878, when I was 26 years of 
age, I was married to Miss Martha R. Ellis, 
who had come to Nebraska a few years be- 
fore with her parents from Illinois. They 
had settled in Clay County, Nebraska, 
where Martha had taken up a homestead 
close to that of her parents. To get the 
marriage license I had either to make a trip 
of 25 miles to the county seat of Clay 
County, or of ten miles to Hastings; but 
having secured the license in Clay County 
it was a long distance to get to the 
preacher's. So Martha agreed to meet me 
on the county line where I had the preacher 
and some witnesses. Although the day was 
bitterly cold, the thermometer standing 20 
degrees below zero, Martha met me as per 
arrangement and choosing a place along- 
side the road just inside the line of Adams 
County we were married, the minister cut- 
ting the ceremony mighty short owing to 
the extreme cold. 

Some time before this I had begun to 
take a good deal of interest in the political 
doings of our county and was pretty well 
informed on county affairs. Juniatta was 
the county seat, had been since the organi- 
zation of the county years before, long be- 
fore the advent of the railroads. Now 
Hastings had grown to be a much larger 
place than the old county seat and the 
voters became mixed up in a fight as to the 

23 



removal of the capital from Juniatta to 
Hastings, and this had been going on in a 
mild form for five or six years. We 
thought we were having a jim dandy of a 
scrap and that we were something fierce as 
fighters, while we were willing to admit 
that the Juniattans were no amateurs at 
the game. 

The only real trouble we had, and the 
loss in that was merely a black eye, occur- 
red at the final election. We sent a com- 
mittee of six citizens from Hastings to 
\vatch the Juniatta polls during the elec- 
tion, and they had a like committee at our 
polling place. All went well until the bal- 
lots were being counted when a little breeze 
of a row was started over a disputed ballot 
and our committeemen were hauled bodily 
out into the street, during which fracas one 
of our boys was knocked down and his eye 
discolored. 

Then, according to agreement, a blind 
telegram was sent us to ''ship six carloads 
of corn to Carney, Nebraska." We under- 
stood and soon had loaded up six wagon- 
loads of citizens and they made the six 
miles to Juniatta in a hurry. We w^ere 
then in such force that we could command 
and enforce a square deal, which we got 
without any serious trouble. 

Among our adversaries in this fight 
was Senator James Laird, who for several 

24 



years was one of the leading citizens of 
Nebraska. While he was usually called 
senator he never succeeded in being elected 
to the upper house of Congress. He did, 
however, serve three full terms in the 
House of Representatives, and died, in 
1889, while serving his fourth term. At 
the conclusion of the counting of the ballots 
in the county seat contest a number of the 
citizens of Hastings "induced" Senator 
Laird to come over to our town and make a 
speech. Upon his arrival we started a 
huge bonfire, put the senator upon a large 
goods box and he whooped it up for Hast- 
ings, of which city he soon became a citizen 
and resided there until his death. 

At about the same time as our Juniat- 
ta-Hastings fight there was also going on a 
scrap in Clay County, the contesting towns 
being Clay Center and Sutton. The latter 
town was situated away off on one side of 
the county while Clay Center was, as the 
name indicates, in the geographical center 
of the county. So there was not much to 
this fight save speechifying and fireworks. 
There was no blood shed, not even as much 
as a black eye, on either side. 

While I was more or less mixed up m 
both of these fights, and took a particularly 
active part on the side of Hastings, because 
my interests centered there, but I did not 
enter fully into the hilarity of the affairs. 

25 



I suppose they were so tame that my fight- 
ing blood was not fully aroused. I certain- 
ly did not realize that in the near future I 
was to enter into contests of the kind 
where the weapons would be something 
more than wind and the damage a great 
deal more than a black eye. But such 
turned out to be the case, although I never 
acted save on the side of law and order. 

And as this book will deal largely with 
county seat contests it may be well to say 
before going further that a county seat 
fight is about the strangest sort of a scrap 
that can be imagined. In the first place 
such a contest as a rule works up more ill 
will, destroys more friendships, makes 
more enemies, breaks up more families 
and produces more pure cussedness than 
any other sort of a political contest ever 
fought. 

As a rule the stake is next to nothing. 
I have known of contests being waged with 
the greatest bitterness where there was not 
over 800 people involved and where the tax- 
able property in the entire county did not 
amount to $10,000. So it can be seen that 
there would not, legitimately, be taxes 
enough collected to pay the collection fees, 
while for the salaries of the officials there 
would be nothing in sight, surely nothing 
worth fighting over. 

It is true there might be certain sales 

26 



of town lots in the town fortunate enough 
to win the contest. But as a rule the own- 
ers of the townsite had to put up more 
money to carry on the fight than the lots 
would sell for after the affair was settled. 
That is in the winning town; in the losing 
town there would be no value whatever to 
the lots. Of course I am speaking now of 
the original scraps among towns in newly 
organized counties. Once in a while we 
hear of a county seat contest in an old set- 
tled county, perhaps where one town has 
held the court house as an asset for a gen- 
eration or more. Then by some freak of 
changing conditions another and perhaps 
a larger town springs up and an effort is 
made to remove the county seat. Perhaps 
such contests get into the courts and out 
again, receive legislative action, are fought 
over and over. 

I might call attention to a contest that 
has come up periodically every ten or a 
dozen years for almost a century; to an- 
other where for half that time the court 
house might just as well have been on 
wheels, so uncertain was its tenure. These 
scraps of course create and foster feuds, 
lead to almost endless litigation and cause 
financial disaster to many people. But it 
must be remembered that in these scraps 
there is a stake considered worth scrap- 
ping over, the towns in the cases I have 

27 



mentioned having each a population of sev- 
eral thousand people. One can understand 
why in cases of that kind every argument 
and every legal tangle should be resorted 
to. But where there is nothing but the 
name at stake one is at a loss to understand 
why men become in many cases thieves, 
outlaws and murderers, as has often been 
the case under my observation, simply for 
the "honor" of making a certain town the 
county seat. 

CHAPTER III 

During the closing years of the Clay 
County fight I had been taking instructions 
from my wife in the art of photography, 
she being an expert in all branches of that 
business. We established a gallery at a 
little town called Glenville, in Clay County, 
not far from my wife's claim, where we had 
built up quite a nice business. I had ac- 
quired an interest in property in Arkansas 
and soon after the county seat matter was 
settled I went down there to look the mat- 
ter over. I was very much taken with the 
mild climate of that state and upon my re- 
turn I induced my wife to agree to a move. 
In the meantime our oldest child, Maude, 
was born in the little sod house on my 
wife's claim. 

As soon as we succeeded in finding 
good renters for our claims we fitted up a 

28 



wagon as a photograph gallery and travel- 
ing conveyance and with our household 
goods and our little daughter we journey- 
ed to the southland. I wish I could set 
forth fully and understandingly to the 
reader the delights of this trip. But no per- 
son who has not fared forth, young, con- 
tented, care-free, with a good outfit, enough 
property and income in the old home to in- 
sure against the "rainy day," a loving wife 
as a companion and a sweet baby girl as an 
incentive to action — no millionaire can en- 
joy any act of his life more than we enjoy- 
ed that trip from Nebraska to Arkansas. 

It had but one drawback — its end! It 
was far too short and we were sorely 
tempted when we reached our destination 
to journey on and on and on, no matter in 
what direction, no matter where — simply 
journey on and on as wanderers and pil- 
grims in search of something we knew we 
never could attain, an idyllic elysia, a place 
that exists only in the imagination. 

Arriving at the end of our journey, in 
the little town of Judsonia, in White Coun- 
ty, I set up in business as a photographer. 
There was no great rush of business so I 
soon hung out my shingle as a real estate 
agent. A man by the name of Barker was 
the agent in the town for the lands of the 
Iron Mountain Railroad Company, and he 
was doing a good business; I called myself 

29 



the Peoples' Land Agent and Barker rather 
resented the reflection upon himself as a 
corporation representative. So we had a 
little feeling against each other from the 
start. 

I knew Barker was taking advantage 
of his customers, which he did in this way: 
When he would find one of his purchasers 
was making good in the way of improve- 
ments Barker would go to him and pay him 
a lot of compliments and then tell him to 
just go ahead and never mind his pay- 
ments; what the railroad company wanted 
was men who would stay on the land and 
do things for the benefit of themselves, the 
community and the company. 

Usually at the end of three years the 
settler would have his place well fixed but 
was without money. Then Barker, repre- 
senting the railroad company, would swoop 
down on him for the back payments — you 
can see the result. For in the meantime 
the contract of sale had been canceled and 
the settler was out his time and his im- 
provements, to the great advantage of 
Barker. 

I determined to break up this "indus- 
try" and began to gather evidence of ac- 
tual transactions, with the idea of taking 
them to the New York Trust Company 
which held the title to the lands. The 
secret of my investigations leaked out and 

30 



Barker's friends rallied around him and 
then came to me and asked me to desist as 
such an exposure would be of great dam- 
age to their town and county. I told them 
the onl}^ thing that would tempt me to quit 
was to find a sale for my business. If this 
could be assured I would pack up my wagon 
and move on. Anyhow the memories of 
our joyous trip of three years before still 
sweetly lingered with me and I was eager 
to pack up and be moving, and within a 
few days, with a finer outfit than before, 
another child 2 years old, little Estella 
May, and a good fat bank roll, we turned 
our horses' heads towards the setting sun, 
as joyous a quartet of travelers as ever 
slept under the shining stars or drank 
from a bubbling brook. 

We headed for Wichita, Kansas, which 
was then the craziest boom city in the 
United States. As the reader probably 
knows, this town is situated in the south- 
central part of Kansas, being the capital of 
Sedgwick County, one of the finest wheat- 
producing counties in the entire United 
States. When we reached Wichita, after 
a most pleasant journey through Arkan- 
sas, Missouri and Kansas, it was early in 
May, 1886. What I had heard about booms 
before reaching there were all eclipsed by 
what I saw after I arrived. The people 
generally expected, or so they claimed, that 

31 



their town would be anyhow a second 
Chicago, perhaps a second London, and the 
speculative prices of real estate were based 
upon that hypothesis. 

When I arrived the Wichita people 
claimed the town had 50,000 people and was 
growing at the rate of from 1500 to 2000 a 
month. The census of 1880 had given the 
place a population of about 7500 people and 
m 1886, when I reached there, there w^ere 
probably double that number of permanent 
residents, most of whom were permanent 
only because they had to be. By the cen- 
sus of 1890, four years after I arrived there, 
the population amounted to 23,853. But 
during the next decade the town suffered 
so severely from its great boom in the 90s 
that it only had 24,671. 

As to location for an inland city there 
is no place that can beat Wichita. It lies 
in the center of as fine an agricultural sec- 
tion as there is in the world, it has a great 
many railroads touching it, is admirably 
situated to handle a big jobbing trade for 
a large section of Kansas and much of the 
Indian Territory, Oklahoma and northern 
Texas. And it is in a fair way to become 
a big city for the boomers have either died, 
removed or reformed and the ways of the 
real estaters there situated are now nearly 
normal. The place had a splendid growth 
during the decade between 1900, and 1910 



and at the census in the latter year showed 
an increase in population of 112.6 per cent, 
having reached 52,450, being the second 
city in the state, Kansas City being first 
with 82,331. The former metropolises of 
Leavenworth and Topeka had dropped 
down to about half the population of 
Wichita. 

Of course the moment I got to Wichita 
the real estaters got after me and my little 
money, but I did not get excited. I^ found 
their game too swift for me and within a 
fortnight after my arrival I packed up and 
headed my team for the west. Dodge City 
being my objective point. On the day I 
left Wichita it was said a lot on the main 
business street sold for $50,000, or one 
thousand dollars a front foot, about what 
such a lot ought to be worth at that time 
in a city of ten times the size of that city. 

Perhaps from the day that Dodge City 
first began to attract attention, along in the 
middle 70s, up to the time of my visit and 
a few years later, it was the most famous 
city in its way on the American continent. 
Oh, there were lots of "bad'' towns in the 
West. There was Leadville, Cheyenne, 
Tombstone, and several other places that 
attracted world-wide attention. But v/hen 
Dodge City once took the center of the 
stage the spot light never touched any of 
the other places ; she held it alone, supreme, 

38 



undisputed as the great sensational city of 
the country. 

Long before leaving Arkansas I had 
heard about Dodge City and her wicked- 
ness. I had many and many a time heard 
it was the worst and wickedest city on 
earth, that a man even to pass through 
there had to take his life in his hand, and 
probably would never get through alive. 
So you may imagine I approached the city 
with fear and trembling on account of hav- 
ing my wife and my two small girls with 
me. As for myself, had I been alone, I 
would not have batted an eye had all of the 
bad men in Dodge interviewed me. But 
with a family with me I confess I was some- 
what timid. 

I knew quite a lot about Dodge before 
I went there, I learned a lot while there 
and much more after I left. What I am 
going to say about the place is authentic, 
actually true, as any old resident of Dodge 
will tell you. (Note that I call it simply 
Dodge, while the real name was Dodge 
City. "Dodge,'^ or Fort Dodge, was sit- 
uated about four miles east of Dodge City, 
on the Arkansas River, where an army 
post was established during the Indian 
fighting days of 1863. It usually contain- 
ed about a regiment of troops. 

When the Atchison, Topeka & Santa 
Fe Railroad was completed as far as the 

34 



100th meridian, a townsite was established 
and laid out by the townsite company com- 
posed of the officials of the railroad com- 
pany. This happened to be 300 miles west 
from the Missouri River, one hundred and 
fifty miles south from the Nebraska line, 
fifty miles north from the Indian Territory 
line and fifty miles east from the Colorado 
line. 

The townsite was platted in 1872 and 
at once becam.e a station of great import- 
ance, which it held for many years, still 
holds to a certain extent, for today Dodge 
is the metropolis of that one-fourth of Kan- 
sas. In the early days great trading teams 
came from as far away as 250 miles to the 
south-west. All of the trade from over 
one-half of what was then the Neutral Strip 
and Indian Territory, some of which is now 
Oklahoma, all of the Panhandle of Texas, 
much of Eastern Colorado and all of South- 
western Kansas then paid tribute to Dodge 
City, which was usually spoken of; as it 
still is, as Dodge. In the ^few years be- 
tween 1872 and 1880 more buffalo m.eat and 
more buffalo hides were shipped from 
Dodge than from any other half dozen 
points in the country — actually the ship- 
ments were made by trainloads. As to 
buffalo bones, which went to the great 
sugar refineries of the East, it was nothing 
unusual in '79 and '80 to see three of four 

35 



hundred carloads of them piled up near 
Dodge — also shipped by the trainload. 

CHAPTER IV 

I am not going to trace the history of 
Dodge, though such a story, though often 
told, might be very interesting. But I 
want brifley to give you an idea of the town 
and its people. It has been said by many 
that Dodge was the wickedest city in the 
world. Perhaps you have heard that said 
very frequently. You have also heard, 
which follows as a natural sequence, that 
Dodge had the toughest class of citizens 
in the world. 

I am free to admit that about all of the 
man-killers of the West congregated at one 
time or another between 1872 and 1885 in 
Dodge; but I wish also to state that at the 
same time, contemporaneous with the resi- 
dence of these man-killers, Dodge always 
had a few score of as fine and brave men as 
ever wore shoeleather, and many as splen- 
did women as any town ever possessed. I 
am going to run over a few of the names of 
the men of whom any city might today or 
any other day well feel proud. Many of 
these men, most of them, I knew, the others 
have been vouched for by their old com- 
rades. Look at the list; Bob Wright, (Hon. 
R. M. Wright, lately deceased. As fine a 
man as ever lived.) Judge Beverly, part- 

36 



ner in Bob's in the great firm of Wright, 
Beverly & Co.,; Herman J. Fringer, for 
many years postmaster ; D. M. Frost, of the 
Dodge^ City Globe; Sam Gallagher, drug- 
gist ; Mike Sutton, a famous attorney ; Fred 
T. Winne, real estate and insurance ; Lloyd 
Shinn, partner of Frost's, later postmaster ; 
Larrv Deger, agent of Wells, Fargo & Co. ; 
Dick' Evans, banker ; Dr. McCarty, physi- 
cian and druggist; Cox and Boyd, of the 
Dodge House; Sam Marshall, Insurance 
broker; Doc Galland, of the Galland Hotel; 
the Kollars, merchants; George S. Emer- 
son, merchant; Louie Mclntyre, merchant; 
Eddie Coffee, merchant; P. G. Reynolds, 
mail contractor — and scores of others. 

On the other hand there were many 
famous men there who were engaged in a 
business that is not looked upon as legiti- 
mate, but I will set them down as typical 
of a certain class of Dodge society ; Prairie 
Dog Dave; Bat Masterson; Bill Harris; 
Chalk Beeson; Tom Nixon; Bill Tilghman; 
Mayor "Dog" Kelly; Luke Short; Colonel 
McClure; Wyatt Earp; Fred Singer; Dave 
Mather— and a few score others. 

In the old days the gamblers ruled 
Dodge and the gambling dens and dance 
halls were practically on the street. That 
is, the monte and other games were carried 
on to a certain extent in the front of the 
bar rooms just inside the open doors on the 

37 



street, with almost as many lewd women 
onlookers and players as men. In those 
days the chief revenue of the city came 
from a fine of five dollars a week levied 
upon the women of the underworld, of 
which class there were from 80 to 150, ac- 
cording to the season of the year. Of 
these "Dutch Jake'' was the '^dean,'' and 
she v/as a noted character. First, for her 
sobriety and her thrift. She never drank 
but always appeared on the street smoking 
a long black cigar, dressed in faultless 
clothing but wearing a huge Mexican som- 
brero or man's hat on her head. It is said 
that "Jake" hearing that a Dodge business 
concern was short of money walked in and 
called the senior partner aside and told him 
she had twenty-five thousand dollars lying 
useless in a Kansas City bank, any part of 
which the firm could have instanter if they 
wished it. 

Dodge was bad simply in this way — 
you could find all the trouble you wanted 
whenever you cared to go looking for it. 
On the other hand I don't believe there was 
ever a decent man in Dodge euchred out of 
a cent, or in any other way mistreated, if he 
kept away from the places and persons of 
the sharks whose business it was to fleece 
suckers and sports. By day and by night 
a woman could walk the streets without the 
least fear of molestation. Indeed, if a man 

38 



wanted to commit involuntary suicide in 
Dodge even in her wide-open days, about 
the surest way would be to make a slight- 
ing or insinuating remark about one of the 
good women of the town as she passed 
along the street Twenty gunmen and tin 
horns would be on such a man in a moment. 
In all the history of Dodge there never was 
a respectable woman insulted on the 
streets. And many, very many, "good'' 
towns can't say as much. 

The fellow in the most danger in 
Dodge was the "smart Aleck" who came 
there from some town or city where he was 
noted as the "bad man" of the community. 
Such chaps usually came dressed in chaps, 
sombreros and high topped, long heeled 
boots, with a blue flannel shirt open at the 
neck and a red, blue or green silk handker- 
chief tied, or more properly hung loosely 
around the neck. Then, of course, there 
was the belt with a hundred or so cartridg- 
es and a navy revolver in a holster on each 
side. Now, these would-be and had-been- 
at-home toughs, met their first surprise 
when an officer stepped up and told them 
to take the belt, ammunition and guns 
down to the proper place and deposit them 
until he got ready to depart. For nobody 
but the officers of the law were allowed to 
carry weapons of warfare that were in 
sight. Of course the gamblers and gun- 

39 



men of Dodge, as well as many visitors who 
were wise, carried shooting irons in the hip 
pocket, under the vest or in the boot leg, 
which was permissible. But in the latter 
days no visible arms could be carried on 
the Dodge streets. 

Most of the visitors to Dodge were men 
from the cattle ranches to the south and 
southwest, and the means of conveyance 
was by wagon or on horseback, nine out '>.f 
ten coming by the latter method. For 
these visitors to get into the town the 
bridge over the Arkansas River had to be 
crossed just in the south edge of town, and 
when they reached the Dodge end of this 
bridge their weapons had to be deposited. 
Woe to the man who disregarded this rule ! 
Before he had fairly reached the main 
street he was pounced upon by an officer, 
haled before Judge "Gulliver" Cook, his 
arms and ammunition taken for safe keep- 
ing and a fine imposed, the latter ranging 
from five to twenty-five dollars, according 
to the decency or the uncivility of the new- 
comer. If the visitor desired he could un- 
limber his artillery (most of the visitors 
had a Winchester as well as a brace of 
navies), at the end of the bridge and carry 
it over his arm up to one of the business 
houses where he could leave it for safe 
keeping. 

Dodge had made this arrangement in 

40 



the early days, but only after having the 
town "shot up" by the cowboys. Many 
times a dozen or more, or maybe only two 
or three — in extreme cases a single indi- 
vidual — would get loaded with bad whisky, 
mount his horse and go racing up and down 
the street shooting off guns and yelling like 
a Comanche. Now, there never was a 
marshal of Dodge who cared to take human 
life unnecessarily, so the lone trouble maker 
was soon headed for the open country or 
his horse roped and the rider thrown into 
the calaboose ; if there were several of these 
marauders one or more of them was liable 
to get a shot from the marshal's navy. 
These little pleasantries got onto the 
nerves of the Dodge folk and a summary 
end was put to such frolics. 

But it was these incursions of the cow-- 
boys that had much to do with populating 
''Boot Hill," the cemetery just west of 
town, where only men killed with their 
boots on and such others as had no known 
home — in many cases no name known in 
Dodge — passed away, usually by violent 
deaths, were buried. Yes, and unknown 
women of the underworld. "Boot Hill" 
held quite a large population, and many, 
many secrets. On many of the wooden 
slabs posted at the heads of graves could 
be noted such names as Ivy, Myrtle, Lily — 
nothing more. And what visions one could 

41 



lure up by conjecturing the homes and 
mothers left and bereft by these frail 
women, the only consolation being that per- 
haps the mothers mourned them simply as 
dead or wandering, and not as outcasts who 
had died in their sins. 

Aye, many a father and many a mother 
is today waiting and will be tonight pray- 
ing for a son or daughter who lies under 
the weeds in an unknown grave in "Boot 
HilV and perhaps in more cases than one 
these fathers and mothers are still hoping 
to see their offspring again, even though 
the years have been long and the sorrows 
many since last the wandering boy or girl 
was heard from. It is well that "Boot Hill" 
can keep inviolate its secrets. 

CHAPTER V 

I was kept pretty busy in Dodge while 
there and did a good paying business. In- 
deed, for so small a place I never saw a 
better business town. At that time Dodge 
did not have over 1500 people, perhaps a 
couple of hundred under that number. 
But no town that I was ever in had more 
money per capita in circulation than had 
Dodge — and this money changed hands 
mighty often I can tell you. 

With my bankroll pretty well fattened 
up we started our outfit for the west, our 
objective point being Ulysses, a brand new 

42 



town in a brand new country about 80 miles 
to the southwest. Before giving my rea- 
sons for heading in that direction I will 
take the reader back a few years and try 
and give a better insight into conditions. 

The first great inrush of settlers that 
ever came into the Dodge territory took 
place in the spring of 1879, the first arrivals 
coming in February. As these newcomers 
arrived they mostly went to the south, 
down in what was tJfien and is now Meade 
County — although quite a sprinkling of 
them went to the north, into Hodgman and 
Ness counties. Of course all who could get 
claims along the Arkansas River near 
Dodge settled there. 

But the Crooked Creek section of 
Meade County, about 30 miles to the south, 
was the Mecca towards which most of them 
went. When the first settlers went down 
there that spring they found but a single 
house in the county, which contained 1008 
miles, being about the size of the state of 
Rhode Island. Meade was considered to 
have as good land as any portion of south- 
west Kansas, and it had. Besides, it was 
pretty well watered, there being many 
springs and several creeks throughout its 
area, though most of the streams went dry 
in the summer months. 

At that time a person could take a 
quarter section of land under the home- 

43 



stead or pre-emp-act, as the entrant de- 
sired, and a quarter section under the tim- 
ber culture act. But there were three 
times as much land susceptible of entry 
under the former acts as under the latter, 
the law providing that only one claim, not 
exceeding 160 acres, could be taken in each 
section as a tree claim as these claims were 
usually spoken of. 

The land office was at that time at 
Larned, but the land district was divided in 
1882 and the western portion of it, from the 
100th meridian west, had its office located 
at Garden City, Finney County (formerly 
Sequoyah County.) I mention these facts 
to show that when the first great rush of 
landseekers came into the Dodge territory 
they were pretty badly hampered by the 
great distance to the land office from their 
claims — some of them 75 miles, an average 
of about 80 miles. 

The entire country south-west of 
Dodge was at that time a vast cattle range, 
used very largely as the holding grounds 
where the cattle driven up from Texas to 
be sold at Dodge or shipped from there, or 
possibly to be driven on to the Wyoming, 
Nebraska or Montana ranges, were grazed 
while the selling or shipping arrangements 
were being conducted. 

At that time — the early spring of 1879 
— when these first settlers went into the 

44 



Crooked Creek section, the entire valley 
was covered with about as many cattle as 
could find good grazing. In addition to the 
cattle and the ponies of the cattlemen, there 
were many large bands of wild horses 
ranging in that section, also vast herds of 
antelope. At any time of the day one 
could get up on a convenient object fifteen 
feet from the ground and see, near or far, 
several hundred antelope, maybe several 
thousand, and perhaps several hundred 
wild horses. 

But the settlers flowed in like herds of 
sheep and the wild horses got wilder (and 
a wild horse is the shyest "critter'' in the 
country.) The herds of antelope split up 
and scattered also, but they were very 
plentiful for a couple of years. When the 
first settlers took up their claims in 1879 
they expected the spring rains soon to come 
along. Those who did not succeed in get- 
ting a location near a spring found, as a 
rule, some water, enough for a short time, 
in the little draws and buffalo wallows, for 
there had been some snow in January. 

The inrush of settlers continued until 
well along in June — but no rain came, not 
a drop. 

By the middle of June several of the 
"leading citizens" thought steps ought to 
be taken to organize the county, it being in- 
convenient to have the laws administered 

45 



by the Ford County officials, Meade being 
attached to Ford for judicial purposes, and 
Dodge, county seat of Ford, was from 30 to 
75 miles distant. It took at that time, un- 
der the laws of Kansas, 1500 people to or- 
ganize a county. So a few people took it 
upon themselves to make a sort of census 
to see if there were that many people in 
Meade. This was completed about the 25th 
of June (1879) and it was found there were 
about 1800 residents in the county. 

Not a drop of rain had yet fallen, the 
prairies were turning brown, the ground 
was so parched and dry that it was difficult 
to plow it to get sod for building the sod 
houses, not a thing that had been planted 
was growing. It sure looked pretty blue. 
On the 28th of June a man by the name of 
Howard Lowry, packed up his wife and 
children and what little plunder he had in 
the way of furniture and household uten- 
sils, and headed his team of Texas ponies 
to the eastward. Only the day before 
Lowry had been heard to declare that he 
was one of those who was going to "stick.'' 
During the night he changed his mind and 
was away before noon. A day or two later 
another family left— within a week the 
road leading to Dodge (and to "God's 
country" as the refugees called their old 
home sections), was lined with the return- 
ing homesteaders, pre-emptors and their 

46 



families and goods, or such goods as they 
could get away with. The rest they sold, 
bartered, gave away or abandoned. Many 
lumber shacks, perhaps with shingle roofs, 
were left to be torn and hauled away by 
those left behind — perhaps the man who 
appropriated it would himself abandon it 
as well as his own dwelling place before a 
week elapsed. So it went on throughout 
July, August and September — still not a 
drop of rain. 

During the fall months conditions did 
not change, except that the cavalcade of re- 
turning settlers was greatly diminished, 
the number of actual bona fide residents by 
the first of January having dwindled to a 
scant 100. In a few words the history of 
Meade for 1879 can be written— not a drop 
of rain. Indeed from late in the fall of 
1878 to July 4th, 1880, there was no rainfall 
worthy the mention in that whole section 
betv/een the Colorado line and the eastern 
boundary of Ford County. In 1880 the 
buffalo grass remained perfectly brown 
until this downpour in July came. I am 
stating these facts to show the reader just 
how rapidly a section can fill up and how 
rapidly it can "empty out." About the 
craziest people I ever saw were landseekers 
in various parts of the West — but when 
they took a notion to quit they were just as 
crazy. 

47 



When south-western Kansas was di- 
vided into counties after the formation of 
the state, the divisions were practically the 
same as they are today. They remained so 
up until the famine years of 1878-9-80. 
Soon after that the legislature cut the ter- 
ritory now comprising the nineteen coun- 
ties into three counties, calling them Ford, 
Finney and Hamilton, and of this territory 
Dodge was the capital city, all being at- 
tached to Ford for judicial purposes. 

In 1881 there were no incoming settlers 
worth mentioning, none in 1882, though 
everybody was sure there would be a rush 
the latter year. On October first, 1882, the 
Lamed land district was divided and the 
western office located at Garden City. But 
at this office less than two dozen entries 
were made between October 1, 1882 and 
March 20, 1883. On the latter day, and it 
was raining very hard, six claims were en- 
tered by three people, each taking a home- 
stead and timber claim. The following day 
there were a few more — in a week the 
landseekers were pouring in like sheep, 
within a month the incoming trains from 
the east practically unloaded at Garden 
City and there was a line sometimes three 
or four blocks long of men and women 
awaiting their turn to get into the land 
office. 

These settlers began to take up the 

49 



claims in Meade County, those that had 
been abandoned. The timber claims and 
homesteads they had to contest, the pre- 
emtion claims they simply took possession 
of and then filed their papers. Like a 
prairie fire reaching from the Arkansas 
River south to the present Oklahoma line 
these settlers swept westward — and also 
north of the river through two tiers of 
counties — about every claim worth having 
was filed on as the army moved to the 
west. Sometimes the land office would not 
open for a week at a time, sometimes it 
would be open only an hour a day, some- 
times two hours, not having clerks enough 
to do the business. 

Remember now that this section of 
south-western Kansas was at that time 
composed of three counties, but these three 
were made up of what had been nineteen. 
You must remember this to get an insight 
of the stakes in sight in the territory com- 
prising these former counties — provided 
the old lines could be re-established. These 
"stakes^^ were the county seats. In 1884 
the old county lines had been restored, as 
well as the old names in most cases, and as 
the counties filled up with settlers there 
were at least a dozen county seat fights im- 
minent at the time I write of, and some of 
them were already on. 



50 



CHAPTER VI 

In looking over the field to the west and 
south-west and north-west of Dodge, only 
in which localities I could get a pre-emption 
claim, I finally decided to cast my lot with 
Ulysses and the Grant County people, 
Grant County being about 25 miles east of 
the Colorado line, the same distance north 
of the Neutral Strip now Oklahoma) line, 
and thus only the distance diagonally 
across Stanton County from the south-west 
corner of the state. 

So packing up my goods, loading up my 
family and chattels in my wagons and with 
a good fat bankroll, I made my way to 
Ulysses, which was then a little town of 
three or four hundred people, but a hum- 
dinger of a little place. In fact Ulysses 
had a good many things to recommend it. 
In the first place it was the only county in 
the country, so far as I can discover whose 
first building was a newspaper office and 
that issued a newspaper before there was 
any other place of business in the county — 
and less than twenty people in the county. 
I was also impressed with the character of 
the men who owned the Ulysses townsite 
and had platted the town, started a bank, 
(which is still running), and erected a fine 
hotel. 

I soon found a good claim upon which 

51 



I placed a pre-emption filing and began to 
make a home. This quarter section was 
situated near the little town of Conductor, 
about a dozen miles due east of Ulysses. 
Having secured my claim I erected a com- 
fortable house thereon, my next move was 
to put up a building for a photograph 
gallery in Ulysses, the townsite people hav- 
ing given me a lot. Thus I became a resi- 
dent of Grant County and a business citizen 
of Ulysses and had cast my lot with the 
Ulysses people for the county seat as 
against Surprise, a town which lay four 
miles to the north-west, on section sixteen, 
Ulysses being on section 36 of the same 
township, in the geographical center of the 
county. 

In establishing sites for county seats 
in those days the quickest and safest and 
cheapest way was to get title to a piece of 
school land, all school lands belonging to 
the state. There were two school sections 
in each township, sixteen and 36, a town- 
ship consisting of 36 sections, being six 
miles square. Several of the counties in 
south-western Kansas, Grant among them, 
had sixteen townships, being twenty-four 
miles square. 

These school lands were set aside for 
the state by the general government when 
the state was admitted to the Union, ,as in 
the case of all the far western states, and 

52 



the proceeds derived from their sale were 
to belong to the state's irreducible school 
fund, one proviso of the law being that 
they should not sell for less than three 
dollars an acre. One could settle, more 
properly ''squat,'' on a quarter section of 
this land, make some $50 worth of improve- 
ments, have the improvements appraised, 
then the land advertised for sale for five 
consecutive weeks. Then it would be sold 
by the county treasurer to the highest 
bidder — but the settler had the prior right 
to take it at the highest bid; if sold to an- 
other the settler was paid for his improve- 
ments. 

Under that law most of the county seat 
sites were secured, usually at three dollars 
and five cents an acre. It was so in the 
case of Ulysses. Sometimes the townsite 
managers w^ould take but a quarter sec- 
tion; the Ulysses people took the entire 
section, paid out on it in full and got the 
patent. 

When the Ulysses promoters first set 
out to operate in Grant County they sent 
me one of their number down there v/ith 
two teams and wagons, three men and a 
lot of supplies in the way of food, several 
reels of wire, some fence posts, four tents, 
a plow, harrow, picks and shovels — all that 
was needed to make a settlement and begin 
improvements. These four men went into 

53 



the exact center of the section and fenced 
twenty acres, being five acres on each 
quarter. Then the land was plowed and 
planted, the tents put up, and the teams 
sent back to the railroad for lumber. This 
arriving the printing office was put up and 
the printing outfit ordered from Kansas 
City. By the time the newspaper office 
was erected the appraisers came along and 
did their duty — and the "settlers" returned 
to their homes — which was all strictly legal. 
When the sale was held the representative 
of the company bid in his own quarter, the 
other three bid in theirs, all received re- 
ceipts and in another hour the county 
treasurer had been paid and issued his re- 
ceipt, the three outsiders deeded their land 
to the company — and the Ulysses Townsite 
Company was the owner of one real town- 
site, containing 640 acres. 

At that time, as said, there were no 
people worth mentioning in Grant County. 
But the wave of settlement and the army 
of settlers, almost like locusts, was march- 
ing along from the east, and mighty soon, 
within weeks, there was a sort of hotel, a 
store, a saloon and several shacks in the 
place — and don't forget the newspaper was 
being issued every week. 

Thus the Ulysses people had secured 
their land without trouble and had what 
looked like a "lead pipe cinch'' on the 

54 



county seat, being in the exact center of 
the county. But they had only won by a 
single day, and by a mistake of others. 
When the four members of the party men- 
tioned went there to take the section and 
began running the lines, under the direc- 
tions of C. 0. Chapman, of Lakin, Kansas, 
one of the members of the townsite com- 
pany, they found a little frame shack 
standing close to the east line of section 
36. But by running the line carefully this 
shack was found to be on section 31 in the 
township just to the east by 20 feet. In a 
closer examination it was found that this 
shack had been located by amateurs who 
had mistaken a quarter corner for a sec- 
tion corner, and had not found the town- 
ship corner at the south-east corner of the 
section. This was discovered by marks 
they had made along the section line. 

So it was evident that these parties 
were in the townsite business and had set 
their eyes on Grant County ; but they lack- 
ed the services of a surveyor. A few dol- 
lars paid to one would have resulted in giv- 
ing them one of the quarter sections — and 
a sort of underhold on the county seat. 
These parties came back with a load of 
plunder the very day after Mr. Chapman's 
party had made their location. When they 
saw the Chapman party's improvements 
they came over and were soon convinced of 

55 



their error. Then they put skids under 
their shack and moved up to section sixteen 
in the same township and started Surprise 
as a rival town and a rival candidate for 
county seat honors. 

These people came from Hutchinson, a 
town on the Santa Fe, R. R., the county 
seat of Reno County. For botching mat- 
ters they were the master hands. First 
they had bungled and lost the central loca- 
tion. Going up to their town called Sur- 
prise they only purchased three of the four 
quarter sections in the section, but laid 
their town out in the center of the section. 
So they did not own the land to the west 
of their main business street running north 
and south, nor to the south of the main 
street running east and west — any old time 
would do to take that in ! But by a device 
it was brought up for sale, advertised 
properly and sold — for three dollars and 
five cents an acre to a member of the Ulys- 
ses Townsite Company. They offered the 
Ulysses people $16,000 for this quarter 
within a few weeks after it was acquired. 

This mistake was made because the 
Surprise people, knowing that the sale was 
to take place in the treasurer's office at 
Garden City at 10 o'clock of a certain day, 
thought they would be in ample time by 
coming on the train that arrived at 10:10. 
They got in on time all right, but the land 

56 



had been sold, the cash paid and the re- 
ceipt issued during those ten minutes. 

That was the main reason that along 
in the summer of 1886 there was a terrible 
commotion in the Surprise neighborhood 
one night, more properly about 2 o'clock 
one morning. The manager of the Ulysses 
townsite was soundly sleeping in his bed- 
room back of his office when the proprietor 
of the livery stable, who had been aroused 
by a horse breaking loose in the stable, 
awakened the manager and said, "There 
are about a million lights up on the hill 
towards Surprise.'' Almost intuitively the 
manager knew they were moving their 
town. He had known, as the Surprise peo- 
ple knew, that with that deeded quarter of 
their townsite the Ulysses people wouldn't 
from a money standpoint, give a whoop if 
Surprise did win the county seat — for they 
would have practically a quarter of it free 
and clear — while the Surprise people would 
have but few business lots left. Thus the 
Ulysses people would bag the most of the 
profits. 

The manager also knew that two miles 
due west of Ulysses and the same distance 
south of Surprise there were two quarter 
sections belonging to a Surprise partisan, 
or rather he had a homestead filing on one 
and a timber culture filing on the other. 
Instantly the manager divined that the 

57 



town was being moved to these quarter 
sections or one of them, where the land 
would be scripped or what is known as a 
government townsite establishedo The 
quarters could be scripped and title secured 
then at about $1500 each — if a government 
townsite was established there would be no 
money in it for the townsite people, title 
passing from the government to the indi- 
vidual settlers on the lots — but by making 
it a government townsite it would raise 
Ned with Ulysses. 

Within a quarter of an hour the mana- 
ger was in the saddle and soon was circling 
around but out of sight of the moving 
throng. Sure enough they were moving 
to the claims as supposed and apparently 
taking both of them. It was a wild sight. 
Every vehicle that could be secured in their 
town or from their partisans to the west 
were on the ground and every building was 
either moved, being moved or being placed 
in readiness for removal. The two miles 
of road between the two places was alight 
with bonfires, lanterns and any old sort of 
light — but the town was sure moving. 

The Ulysses manager knew his men, 
knew their lack of knowledge of the land 
laws and their two-cent policy of never buy- 
ing advice. They were always looking for 
free counsel. So he concluded at once that 
they had purchased the relinquishments to 

58 



those claims but more than likely had not 
placed them on record at the land office. 
So he put his pony into a gallop, covered 
the twenty miles to the railroad in record 
time and before 7 o'clock in the morning he 
was in Garden City. He went to the chief 
clerk of the land office and for a considera- 
tion got a peep at the records before the 
office opened. Sure enough — no relin- 
quishment had been filed. 

The first papers filed in on the land 
office that morning were two contests, ac- 
companied by homestead entries, on the 
two quarters, the contests being brought 
on the allegation that the relinquishments 
to said claims had been sold, and the case 
was set well ahead for hearing and the ad- 
vertisement of the case ordered. Now it 
is one thing to allege and another thing to 
prove — but perhaps the bunglers would 
come in with the relinquishment and admit 
they were going to start a government 
townsite and had bought the settler out for 
that purpose ; and two days later the "legal 
adviser" of the old Surprise, but now of 
the Cincinnati people, that being the name 
of the new town, came sauntering in with 
the relinquishments and a filing for a gov- 
ernment townsite. And sure enough he 
admitted to the register, who happened to 
be a stockholder in the Ulysses Townsite 

59 



Company, that he had purchased the re- 
linquishments. 

Then this ''expert'' was told that the 
relinquishments could be filed all right and 
the entries canceled. But in such case the 
homestead entries filed by the contestants 
would be immediately allowed. Then the 
expert went and hired an attorney — only 
to be told that he had better tear the re- 
linquishments up and return home — and 
move back to land they had title to. 

CHAPTER VII 

Well, I plunged into the county seat 
fight, became a partisan on the Ulysses 
side from the jump. My photograph gal- 
lery was doing a fairly good business and 
I was getting along fine, while at home we 
had a brand new baby girl, to whom we 
gave the name of Flossie Etta. Her birth 
occurred on the 16th day of July, 1886. 

At this time there were county seat 
contests going on all around us, while some, 
notably the one in Meade County, had been 
amicably settled, but some of those raging 
were becoming rather fierce, particularly 
in Wichita and Greeley counties to the 
north and in the five counties of Stanton, 
Morton, Stevens, Seward and Haskell, 
which counties bordered on Grant, Stanton 
being to the west, Morton cornering on 
Grant to the south-west, Stevens lying to 

60 



the south, Seward to the south-east and 
Haskell to the east. 

So we were only about 25 miles from 
ten would-be county seats and each with a 
vicious fight on. But there always must be 
a census taken of the population, and an 
appraisement of the property values must 
be made before there can be a real fight on. 
The Kansas laws at that time provided that 
a county might be organized when its pop- 
ulation reached 1500 and its taxable prop- 
erty amounted to a half million dollars. 
When the residents of a county suspected 
there was a chance to show that many peo- 
ple and that much taxable property to an 
easily-convinced enumerator, a petition 
was sent to the governor and he appointed 
such an official, who had to be a resident of 
some other county. As a rule this was a 
plum handed out to some political hack 
from the eastern part of the state, and 
some of these fellows were about as crook- 
ed as any officials that ever lived. 

Coming into the county after his ap- 
pointment apparently as a stranger the 
chances were ten to one that he had been 
interviewed by at least one of the parties 
in the county seat fight — usually he had 
been "seen'^ by representatives from both 
sides. As a rule the enumerator made his 
headquarters at one of the aspirant towns, 
which of itself gave that place an advant- 

61 



age. Once getting into the field he began 
his duties of counting noses and taking an 
account of improvements. As there were 
only a few quarter sections of deeded land 
in any of these counties at that time, and 
as improvements on undeeded land could 
not be taken into account, about the only 
property of a taxable nature to be found 
was the small stocks of merchandise and 
the improvements in the town and the 
livestock owned by the ^^farmers.'' 

The first duty, as I understand it, and 
as it always worked out, was for the enu- 
merator to find the 1500 noses — which he 
always did. I never heard of a case in 
Kansas, and I have taken up the facts in at 
least twenty county seat contests — 1 never 
heard of a single case where the enumera- 
tor was unsuccessful in finding the requir- 
ed 1500 people, the usual number being 
about 1523. And the half million of prop- 
erty values was about the same. At the 
time I am writing about a half million 
dollars would have bought out everything 
in the way of buildings, merchandise, live- 
stock and everything else of a taxable na- 
ture in the six counties in south-western 
Kansas. I mean a half million dollars in 
real money. 

With the population it was just the 
same. I had about this time an offer made 
to me to leave Grant and go into another 

62 



county, in which county an enumerator 
had just begun his work, while in Grant we 
had not advanced that far. The contract 
offered me called for the instant deeding 
to me of a dozen residence lots and two 
business lots in the would-be county seat, 
the erection of a small photograph gallery 
for me, $100 in cash the day I moved in and 
the promise of being appointed county- 
treasurer. I concluded the office proposi- 
tion was of no value as I did not want a 
dinky little position of that kind. Anyhow 
there would be a dozen candidates and 
more than likely the town company's mana- 
ger had promised his support to each of the 
dozen. In fact it was customary, as I very 
well knew, for the town company to prom- 
ise some office to every man in the county, 
no matter whether he could or could not 
read or write. 

On the other hand I was dissatisfied in 
Grant. The manager of the town com- 
pany there had failed to comiC through with 
the deed to my lots, leaving me in the un- 
enviable condition of having a building, 
which I had bought and paid for, on lots not 
belonging legally to me. So the town com- 
pany could step in and take my building. 
I did not like to be in such a fix as that. The 
manager assured me it was all right, that 
my deeds would be along in "a few days." 
But these "few days'' had elapsed a couple 

63 



of dozen times and I was getting sore. 

So I concluded I would go and look the 
other county over and see if there was any 
sort of a chance for me to better my condi- 
tion by moving. First I wanted to see if 
there were people enough in the county to 
get the organization through. So I spent 
three days in driving and riding over the 
county, covering every portion of it and 
seeing every dwelling place of every sort in 
it. At that time there were not over ten 
miles of fencing in the county, just a few 
quarter sections being enclosed. So the 
"road'' was anywhere you wished to travel, 
so you did not injure a settler's crops (!) 
or ride over any of his property. Hence 
I was able to go from house to house across 
and up and down throughout the county, 
which was only 36 miles square. 

Then I visited the rival towns and 
quietly but pretty accurately counted noses 
and estimated values. After completing 
my labors and jotting everything down in 
a note book I went home to foot the figures 
up. I found there were between 680 and 
710 inhabitants — men, women and children, 
and that for $100,000 I could depopulate 
the entire county by buying every bit of 
property of every settler and business man 
in it. So I decided to stick to Grant for a 
while longer and keep hot on the trail of 
the manager for my deeds. And it was 

64 



mighty well that I did for had I gone into 
this other county God knows I might have 
got mixed up somehow in one of the most 
atrocious crimes ever committed in a 
county seat fight, or any other sort of fight, 
in this country. 

There were down in the Neutral Strip, 
to the south, along the Cimarron River and 
Beaver Creek, an abundance of wild plums, 
which were now in good condition for can- 
ning and making into pies, jams, etc. As 
there was no other sort of fruit in that 
whole section these bitter, almost uneatable 
plums, were considered quite a luxury, so 
many little picnic parties were formed to 
go down and make a holiday of it and 
bring home a few bushels of plums. 

One such party, consisting of seven 
men and a boy, went down from the county 
mentioned one fine day. They had picked 
fruit all the forenoon and had nearly a 
wagon load of it. Then they had gone to 
a spring and got a bucket of water and 
were sitting down in the shade of a hay- 
stack, near their teams and wagons, eating 
their lunch. Then up rode a party of arm- 
ed men, all citizens of the rival town, and 
shot down the entire eight like dogs — then 
rode away leaving the dead bodies to the 
mercy of the ravens. 

However they were not all dead — the 
little boy had fallen when shot and soon 

65 



the man standing practically over him was 
also shot and fell on the little fellow. When 
the murderers got off their horses and look- 
ed the corpses over they forgot about the 
boy. The little fellow soon recovered from 
his superficial wound and had sense enough 
to wait for night, when he was successful 
in catching one of the horses and rode home 
to tell of the dreadful deed — and give the 
name of every participant. 

The seven were all soon arrested by the 
United States authorities and taken down 
to the nearest jail in Texas, it being un- 
derstood that this Neutral Strip was in the 
judicial territory of the Northern District 
of Texas. The friends of the murderers 
were able to secure the services of some of 
the best attorneys both of Texas and Kan- 
sas; the government was also represented 
by lawyers of ability. Then began a legal 
battle that lasted for several years and was 
twice passed upon by the Supreme Court 
of the United States. Twice the murder- 
ers were tried, convicted of murder in the 
first degree and sentenced to be hanged, 
but the question of jurisdiction was a viinl 
one and finally they were set free. How- 
ever, they were broken in fortune, their 
families were scattered and there was but 
little left for them to live for. 



66 



CHAPTER VIII 

About this time something, and some- 
thing very trivial, happened in my life that 
gave m.e a reputation I was not entitled to. 
In my wanderings I had become a slave to 
the habit of carrying, wherever permitted, 
a pair of .45 navies, hanging m holsters at- 
tached to a belt. In the belt I also carried 
a few dozen loaded shells. One day I was 
going towards Ulvsses from my home near 
Conductor on foot, my horses being busy. 
Anyhow I knew a neighbor was going in 
that day and I would catch a ride. Sure 
enough the neighbor came along and invit- 
ed me to a seat in his wagon. After we had 
gone a couple of miles we came to the house 
of a settler whose wife was trying to catch 
a chicken she wished to cook for dmner. 
I remarked that as the fowl was so wild the 
best way would be to shoot its head off. 
"But," she replied, "I have no gun. Well, 
said I, "I have a reliable .45 here and I think 
maybe I can hit it if it will stand still. 
Just then her little boy came chasing the 
fowl past us, about twenty yards away. 
It was going pretty fast, but I determined 
to risk a shot— and I shot its head off as 
slick as if it had been cut off with a sharp 

^^' I made light of the matter, saying that 
was nothing out of the ordinary and that 

67 



if a man could not hit as big an object as a 
chicken at close range he had better throw 
his gun away. After the neighbor and I 
had driven on about a half mile towards 
Ulysses we came to a place where there was 
a prairie dog village and near one of the 
mounds beside a hole sat a mother owl with 
her four little baby owls near her. "There," 
said the friend with whom I was riding, "is 
a pretty good mark ; suppose you see if you 
can shoot the old owl's head off.'' She was 
just about 30 yards away, just about the 
right distance for me, but I tell you I was 
afraid my reputation acquired by behead- 
ing the chicken would be lost if I failed to 
hit the owl. So I demurred by arguing 
that it would be too bad to make orphans 
of the little owls, that it would be pure 
wantonness as these owls were no damage 
but a blessing to the country by killing so 
many gophers and eating so many grass- 
hoppers, the country being overrun with 
the latter. 

But he insisted that I was afraid I 
couldn't hit her, so I finally gritted my 
teeth and determined to call him. I just 
reached down, drew my .45, raised it slowly 
and as the sight covered the owl I pulled the 
trigger and shaved the head off slick and 
clean. When the neighbor began to com- 
pliment me and ask questions about my 
markmanship I simply said, "Oh, shucks; 

68 



what do you suppose a fellow carries a navy 
for if he can't hit the side of a barn when 
he wants to ? That was no shot for a man 
who knows anything about shooting." 

He went and got the dead owl and 
threw it into his wagon and we drove on 
into town. I went to work in my gallery, 
being pretty busy at the time, and he went 
into the hotel. But you may rest assured 
he told a number about my shooting and 
showed the headless body of the owl. A 
few days later the woman's husband came 
in ,referring to the chicken shot, and told 
corroborated the story about my shooting 
the head off of a chicken running at the 
rate of about twenty miles an hour — and it 
soon became noised all over that part of 
Kansas that "Buffalo Bill" Deveney was 
the best shot in Kansas. 

I rather egged the reputation on, sort 
of shoved it along, as it were, by quietly, 
here and there telling this one or that one 
about some (purely imaginary) occasion 
when such a county seat scrap was on I had 
"buffaloed" the fellows opposed to me by 
plugging six ten cent pieces at twenty paces 
in six seconds, never taking the gun down, 
just throwing the hammer with my gun- 
hand thumb. 

Pretty soon emissaries began coming 
to me from the near-by counties making me 
offers to join their parties in this or that 

69 



contest. Some of these offers sounded 
pretty tempting, but I knew they wanted 
me to be on hand if there was any gun fight- 
ing to be done ; in fact my duties would be 
to do such killing as I was ordered to do. 
I never had shed an ounce of human blood 
since I was a boy when I bloodied now and 
then a nose in a scrap at school. The only 
time since when I had drawn blood w^as by 
hitting a gambler, who attempted to cheat 
me in a little game, over the head with my 
.45. That was no scrap worth mentioning 
for that was both the beginning and the 
end of it. 

You can rest assured I did not care to 
risk my life in any county seat scrap, or 
any other sort of a scrap, for that matter. 
I had a fine wife, three lovely children, a 
happy home, was doing a good business — 
your Uncle Fuller was well enough off with- 
out hiring out as a man-killer. 

During this time it must be remem- 
bered Kansas was a "dry'^ state, the prohi- 
bition law having passed by a tremendous 
majority in 1880. But the dryness was only 
in spots — it sure did not reach Ulysses or 
any of the other towns in the far south- 
western part of the state. Even in Dodge 
there was more liquor sold at the time I was 
there than ever before. In Garden City the 
saloon was closed a couple of years or so 
after the state went dry — there had never 

70 



been but the one saloon there. It was kept 
by George Henkle, who had at one time 
been the sheriff of Ford County, in which 
Dodge is situated. He usually sold about 
six barrels, 36 dozen bottles, of bottle beer 
a week. At the same time there were two 
drugstores there then and neither of them 
sold any liquor to amount to anything, nor 
did either of them sell beer. After the 
"clean-up" by the state authorities, after 
the town was "closed" by law, there sprang 
up eleven drug stores and the consumption 
of beer ran up to two carloads, or 50,000 
bottles a week. (I understand Kansas is 
very dry now, the same as Oregon soon will 
be. I am sure it makes mighty little diffen- 
ence to me personally one w^ay or the other. 
But I do know that Kansas went through 
almost a hell in geting down to the dry con- 
dition.) 

In every little town aspiring to become 
a county seat, which meant at least two in 
each county, gambling and drinking was 
carried on practically day and night, and 
lewd women were to be found running their 
houses wide open in little towns of 200 or 
800 people. Of course they did not adver- 
tise in the town newspapers, but everybody 
in town knew where these houses were — 
and the inmates brazenly paraded the 
streets with their painted and powdered 
faces by day and by night. 

71 



From every quarter came gamblers, 
card sharps, gun fighters, rowdies, loafers 
— anything to swell the population. "We 
must have that fifteen hundred" was the 
slogan, and devil the bit did the townsite 
managers seem to care how tough the in- 
coming dweller might be. I am sure nine 
managers out of ten would have "shed" 
more smiles over the advent in their town 
of two card sharps or two lewd women than 
they would over the incoming of a decent 
mechanic, merchant or settler. It was 
numbers and not character they wanted — 
that they must have. 

So you may imagine the orgies going 
on in the various towns. Take it in Ulys- 
ses, where the management was superior 
to the most of the places. Gun fights were 
going on more than frequently. By some 
sort of good luck there was only one killing 
and that was only in "fun." A gambler 
was dancing and making a monkey of him- 
self in a saloon and another gambler, an 
enemy of his, undertook to shoot the hat 
off of the dancer. At least that is what he 
said after the dancer fell dead with a bullet 
hole through his brain — and he came 
awful near, within five dollars, of making 
his statement stick, five dollars being the 
fine imposed upon him by the justice of the 
peace for "packing a gun;" and everybody 
in the court room, even the J. P. himself, 

72 



had at least one gun on, most of them two. 

I tell you the virus of the fights began 
to get into my veins as well as into the 
others. Most of the citizens of the county 
had nothing to do. Nothing that was 
planted would grow. Corn placed in the 
ground in the spring might sprout, might 
grow up and bear perhaps a nubbin on now 
and then a stalk. Potatoes if planted would 
practically rot in the ground. If they did 
come up most likely some sort of a bug 
would come along and eat the sprouts off 
clear down into the ground. Some said the 
long black beetles followed the vines down 
and ate what was left of the potato — then 
hibernated and hatched out a few hundred 
more beetles. 

There were three or four kinds of these 
beetles and often you would go to bed at 
night without a sign of one of any variety 
on your place; in the morning they would 
be there by the billion. If it wasn't beetles 
it was grasshoppers, if the grasshoppers 
missed anything green, along came a hot 
wind, like a blast from a furnace, and it 
would shrivel up any vegetation within a 
couple of hours. I have seen rather decent 
looking half-grown corn that was almost 
ready to tassel — a hot wind would come up 
from towards the gulf of Mexico and with- 
in an hour or two the leaves would be only 
fit for cigarette papers and the stalks two 

78 



hours later would make fine kindling wood. 
It was a beautiful country to look at 
and will one day be a prosperous section. 
Perhaps it is now, for great changes have 
taken place in Kansas, Nebraska and all of 
the states on the eastern slope of the 
Rockies. The rainfall is greater, the hot 
winds come no more — at least so I have 
been told, and as a rule fair crops are rais- 
ed without irrigation nearly as far west as 
Denver. What I have said about western 
Kansas applies to that section almost 30 
years ago. 

CHAPTER IX 

About this time there came to me an 
offer to go up into one of the counties north 
of the Santa Fe railroad and take an inter- 
est in a prospective county seat, the little 
town having a population of about 300 peo- 
ple. The proprietors owned a half section 
of land, which was very near the center of 
the county, there was plenty of water in 
the town well, there were, so the emissary 
sent to see me said, at least 1800 people in 
the county and an enumerator v/as soon to 
be appointed by the governor. Rut best of 
all the opposing town had mighty poor 
backing, its promoters being amateurs at 
the game and without capital. 

All of this and much more the man sent 
to see me told me and I soon found he was 

74 



one of the five owners of the townsite and 
had been sent down to secure my services. 
The offer made to me was a one-sixth in- 
terest in the townsite company — each of 
the five to chip in a fifth of his stock, $250 
in cash, the use of a building for my pho- 
tograph gallery, $50 a week for my ser- 
vices up to the day the governor appointed 
the officials for the county, four business 
and six residence lots in the town — I forget 
what else! 

Now I found this man had come after 
me on account of my record as a gun play- 
er, a reputation built pure and simple on 
the incidents I have mentioned and one 
little scrap in Dodge where I happened to 
get into a little game of cards one night, 
rather about two o'clock one morning, 
while waiting for a train. The game was 
but a trifling one, there not being over 
fifty dollars at stake. I had sat in merely 
for pastime, the game being vantoom, or, 
as usually called — twenty-one. The fellow^ 
dealing was a ''bad man" as I well knew — 
and of course I knew the other fellow play- 
ing was a "capper'' for the house. 

Well we were running along about 
neck and neck when I discovered the dealer 
rather bungling slip a card on me — quicker 
than a wink I grabbed my .45 and slammed 
him over the head with it, appropriated 
what money was in sight, sorted out the 

75 



fifty belonging to me, left the balance on 
the table and walked out, a .45 in each hand, 
while the two boobs stood looking at me. 

News of scraps like that travel fast 
and travel far in any country — and gain in 
every way imaginable as they travel. For 
instance, it was said in Grant County that 
I had several notches on my gun and each 
notch stood for a killing. That I was the 
best shot in Arkansas while I lived there 
was conceded — that I had rapped a gambler 
over the head in Dodge, taken away from 
him the bank roll, walked out unconcerned- 
ly while the six inmates of the place looked 
on but did not dare to touch me — -oh, the 
reports were running all over south- 
western Kansas that ''Buffalo Bill" De- 
veney, that long haired chap, was a bad, 
bad man from Badville and was the best 
shot that ever came down the pike. Of 
course these reports got to my ears and I 
did not think it necessary to enter any de- 
nials. I just let them run and run. 

This "fine" record of mine, built en- 
tirely upon a couple of lucky shots, had 
been the means of bringing this offer dowri 
from the northern county. They had a 
nasty scrap on up there and the owners 
wanted a man to take hold and, if neces- 
sary, do what gun work had to be done. 
That is what was meant when the man sent 
down said that I would be expected to re- 

76 



main in the town and manage the affairs 
of the town until the county was organi- 
zed. The other owners all had very im- 
portant business elsewhere and would be 
gone some considerable time — until the 
county seat question was settled I imagin- 
ed. 

I concluded I would go up and look the 
matter over on the ground. So I told the 
fellow that if he would pay me for two 
weeks' work I would go up and make my 
decision while in the town — but I must have 
the hundred in advance. He paid it to me 
and we rode north headed for Lakin, from 
which town we struck north to our destina- 
tion. Arriving there I was hailed as a 
sort of Joshua. I was wined and dined, 
feasted and fawned upon. I was dressed 
in my "Buffalo Bill" suit of buckskin, I had 
a buckskin colored horse that was soine 
saddle horse I can tell you, my spurs were 
of the Mexican variety and my hat ! Why 
I wore a Spanish Sombrero that cost me 
$25, and it had a gold cord and tassel on it 
worth as much more. I sure cut some ice 
in the new town. 

When I came to look the matter over 
carefully I found that the offer made me 
might and might not be based on a sound 
basis. For instance, I found that the town 
company could not make a valid deed to 
the lots for the reason that the land was not 

77 



entirely paid for. "Why not paid for?" 
was the question I asked of myself. I came 
to the conclusion that they did not have the 
money. 

Before I had had time to study the 
question thoroughly, in fact the third night 
after my arrival, while I was sitting in a 
chair at the ''hotel," which was a mere 
shack with mostly canvas partitions, there 
was all at once a terrible commotion in the 
saloon and gambling house next door. I 
rushed out and before I could get to the 
door of the place three or four shots rang 
out and half a dozen or more people came 
rolling out the door end over end. 

I jumped over these as best I could and 
upon entering the room there stood two 
fellows, each with an ordinary little revol- 
ver, pegging away at each other, each tak- 
ing a shot just as I entered. I drew my 
.45s, one in each hand, and before those fel- 
lows knew I was there I had ''cuffed" each 
along the side of the head with a gun, had 
grabbed each by the collar as he fell and 
taking them to the door I threw them out 
into the street — then I quietly walked back 
and took the chair I had vacated three 
minutes before — and the row was all over. 

The following night a "banquet" was 
given to me, the place being in a new build- 
ing just being erected for a store. Nearly 
everybody in town was there as a host, I 

78 



was the only guest! I felt a little out of 
place, but I tried to carry myself as if such 
things as banquets were an everyday affair 
to me. I was toasted several times, and 
and listened to large — and long — chunks of 
oratory before I deigned to speak. Then I 
complimented the town and the people and 
the country, not forgetting to pull a few 
tailfeathers out of the American eagle in 
setting forth the claims of Kansas, blessed 
Kansas! I also reached up into the 
heavens and plucked a star or two when I 
came to ''my country," the land of the 
brave and the home of the free. 

Of course I made no mention of the 
scrap of the evening before — I had done the 
same all day. Whenever anybody v/ould 
bring it up I would say, "Oh, those boys 
were just fooling; it was all a joke — noth- 
ing to it, sir, nothing whatever I do as- 
sure you, just the boys and I having a little 
frolic.'' Of course the bullets from the 
"young" revolvers had pierced the boards 
— in one case the ceiling and in one case the 
floor — of the saloon, and these were held as 
precious souvenirs. But I made light of 
the entire affair. 

I had to make a decision pretty quick, 
so I asked for a week in which to give an 
answ^er and returned to my home in Grant. 
Less than a week I learned that on the third 
day after I had left the town to the north a 

79 



wagon had come into the place in the after- 
noon, an ordinary farm wagon but with a 
high box. Some loose hay was seen to be 
in the wagon box as it was driven down the 
street slowly, but one man, the driver, in 
sight. Suddenly this driver pulled a gun 
and fired five shots rapidly in the air. In- 
stantly he dropped down into the wagon 
box, at the same time everybody near came 
rushing from the buildings onto the street 
— at the right moment eight men, four on 
each side, arose from under the hay in the 
wagon, each with a Winchester in his 
hands, and began shooting at the citizens, 
meantime the driver from his hiding place 
guiding the team, now at a dead run, down 
the street, thence out into the country. 

The result of the fusilade, some forty 
shots having been fired from the wagon and 
a half dozen from the street — the result 
was four dead men and two badly wound- 
ed. The wagon party were disguised so 
that not one of them could be recognized 
and the townspeople were so badly rattled 
that it was over an hour before a party was 
organized to pursue them. By that time it 
was near dark — never was any trace — any 
legal evidence — discovered as to their per- 
sonnel. 

Less than a week later I received an 
anonymous letter, postmarked at Garden 
City, saying "if you had showed your head 

80 



on the street at (blank) yesterday after- 
noon we would have filled your dammed 
carcas full of lead — you are the s — of a 

b- we were after." Now do you know 

that letter came mighty near causing me 
to go back and get into that fight for fair? 
Well, it did. But not for the reason some 
of my readers may think. I will tell you; 
it showed me that the fellows who made 
that sortie, and would perhaps stoop to 
lower deeds, were just silly boobs and could 
be easily outwitted. I was not a bit scared 
— but I had received an answer to a letter 
I had written to the bank in Kansas City, 
at least to the bank through one of its good 
customers who was a friend of mine, and 
this letter, signed by the president of the 
Kansas City bank, said that the townsite 
company of (blank) was in very deep 
water and it was not safe to extend them 
any credit. 

If that was the case thus early in the 
game what chance was there for them^ to 
"entertain" the enumerator when appoint- 
ed, how were they going to pay the other 
expenses — I had made a study of the mat- 
ter and had come to the conclusion that I 
could not make a successful campaign, one 
bound to win, for less than $30,000— how 
could I win for a concern that had no 
credit and maybe no money worth men- 
tioning? 

81 



Aside from that part of the question I 
had concluded that from almost every 
standpoint the rival town had the best of 
the fight. So I came to the conclusion that 
I would keep out of all such matters until 
som^ething to my liking turned up. Any- 
how I was doing pretty well as it was. My 
business was fairly prosperous and my ex- 
penses were mighty light. Taking it all 
around I was having a pretty good time 
and was saving up a little money — which 
only about half a dozen men in the county 
could say at that time. But I had no con- 
fidence in that entire section for the fu- 
ture — at least I did not see how any man 
could make a living there in any other busi- 
ness aside from raising livestock, and in 
that business it would be absurd to think 
of making any money on less than a sec- 
tion, 640 acres. As there v/ere less than 
600 sections in the county, and one quarter 
in practically every section was a timber 
claim, I could not figure out a future popu- 
lation of more than a thousand people in 
the county. I knew no town could prosper 
on as small a population ; and here, all told, 
were five or six little towns, each selling 
goods and cutting into the trade. 

As for Grant ever being a farming 
section — or any other portion of the ex- 
treme south-western part of Kansas — I had 
no hope. The rainfall was too little and 

82 



there was no water for irrigation purposes. 
Another drawback was the depth one had 
to go to get well water. I spent $450 on a 
well and then got but an insufficient flow 
— I could pump it dry in fifteen minutes. 
My neighbors came for two or three miles 
from all around me and hauled it away a 
barrel at a time, as I would allov/ no one to 
take more than that at one time. There 
was a constant line awaiting their turn 
from daylight in the morning until after 
dark at night, often making it difficult for 
me to get what I needed for the use of the 
house and for watering a few cow^s and 
horses. 

CHAPTER X 

About this time there began some op- 
erations in the various counties all over 
western Kansas that brought about an era 
of unexpected prosperity — rather of seem- 
ing prosperity. That was the advent of 
the loan companies. Up to that time none 
of the large mortgage companies of New 
York or Boston, nor any of the foreign 
companies, would loan a dollar on an 
ordinarily improved quarter section of 
"farm'^ land in that whole area of about 
one-eighth of the state. But now a New 
York Company cam.e in and began to loan 
$500 on any ordinary claim that a man or 
family was making a home on, and advanc- 

83 



ing the money, about $225, to prove up on. 
So the settler would file his application to 
make final proof and within about six 
weeks he and his three witnesses would go 
to the land office and before the register or 
receiver show his good faith and continued 
residence on the tract, and detail the im- 
provements. 

Usually a group of five or six would go 
on the same day and act as witnesses for 
each other, which lowered the expenses 
very materially. As soon as the papers 
were filled out and sworn to and the $200 
paid over to the government the receiver 
issued his receipt. Then the claimant went 
before a notary public and signed the 
mortgage which had been prepared, the re- 
ceipt and mortgage were placed on file and 
the agent of the mortgage company handed 
over the balance due, close to $300. 

Very soon, however, other companies 
came into the field and before long they be- 
gan to bid against each other, running the 
regular price up to about $750 a quarter 
section, in many cases to five dollars an 
acre, $800 per quarter, and in cases where 
the improvements were extra good, mostly 
in the way of permanent fencing, and *^a 
well with water in it" was shown to be on 
the claim, as much as a thousand could be 
raised — in some isolated cases $1200 was 
paid by the mortgage company. 

84 



Not one of these mortgage companies 
ever received any interest on these loans, 
let alone principal. Well, that is going 
pretty strong for now and then a man had 
the good sense to go into the stock business 
and maybe had a little money to buy up a 
few of the equities at from ten to $50 each, 
thus getting maybe range enough for a 
hundred cattle. Such men came through 
all right. But these were as one in 50. 
So in place of saying no interest or princi- 
pal was ever paid I will say that less than 
two per cent was paid. However, it did 
not make much difference to the mortgage 
companies for every last one of them went 
broke before the game ended. In fact the 
collapsing of these mortgage companies — 
four or five of them had their headquarters 
on Wall Street, in New York — had a good 
deal to do with bringing about the panic 
which followed a few years later. 

I knew as well as I ever knew anything 
that no section of country could long pros- 
per in any such way. Money became very 
plentiful for when these men, many of 
whom had scarcely had a square meal for 
a year, got this "easy money" in their 
pockets they did not know how to make 
sensible use of it. Some of them packed up 
at once and left. But not many — they were 
interested in the county seat fights and had 
more than likely a few lots in the coming 

85 



metropolis— more likely they had, as I had, 
the promise of these lots. ^ Anyhow they 
wanted to see the fight out, then sell their 
lots and light out for ''God's country," 
which might be any old place outside of 
Kansas. 

With nearly a quarter of million dol- 
lars pouring into Grant in less than a j^ear, 
and the same amount or more in the ad- 
jacent and adjoining counties, things were 
running at a high pressure. Having seen 
booms of various kinds before I was not 
fooled much by the excitement and laid my 
plans to get from under before the bubble 
burst. I knew that lots that would sell for 
maybe $200 at the time would not sell for 
four bits after the county seat was located, 
knew that the time to sell was before, not 
after, the election. I had seen about the 
same excitement in railroad booms, where 
a new railroad was building towards a 
town — the time to sell town lots was before 
the first train got within a couple of miles 
of the place. 

So I first mortgaged my claim for every 
dollar I could get for it, about $800, then 
sold my equity for $25 more. Then I went 
to the manager of the Ulysses town com- 
pany and demanded my deeds. Of course 
I did not get them. It was pretty well un- 
derstood that no deeds would be given until 
the county seat election was over with. It 

86 



then looked like a cinch that Ulysses would 
win — but I wanted the deeds so I could sell 
while there were buyers. But I could not 
get them peaceably — and I was not going 
to fight for them. 

One day as I was sitting in my gallery 
reading a newspaper a fellow came in who 
introduced himself as one of the owners of 
a townsite and prospective county seat to 
the west of us. He said that the company 
had held a meeting the evening before and 
had sent him over to make me a proposi- 
tion to move over into their county and 
take charge of their affairs as manager of 
the company and as a sort of commander- 
in-chief of the county seat campaign. 

He unfolded the plans of the company, 
told me all about their holdings and the 
titles to their property and finally made me 
a proposition like this ; I was to remove my 
gallery and other moveable lares and 
penates to their town. When once there I 
was to take up my duties as manager of the 
campaign. That I was to be paid a salary 
in cash of $50 a month during the carn- 
paign and if the election went in their 
favor I was to receive title to a 40 acre tract 
of land adjoining the townsite and $2000 
in cash. 

It will be noted that the future pay- 
ments looked good — but how about that 
$50 a month? The offer plainly showed 

87 



that the company was up against it for 
ready money and was depending upon sales 
to be made after the election — and I knew 
mighty well there would be no such sales. 
However, I told the emissary that if he 
would put up $50 I would go and look the 
place over and make up my mind within a 
week and that the $50 would pay for my 
services for that length of time. 

Well, I went over and first began to 
get what facts I could about the financial 
standing of the company. I could get but 
little satisfaction from any of its members 
— there were six owners, three of w^hom 
lived there. I finally ran across a fellow 
who had been a clerk in the local bank and 
he told me that they were practically 
'^busted'* and were trying in every way to 
borrow a thousand dollars to tide them 
over the election. I knev/ mighty well they 
couldn^t afford to pay me anything like 
what Fd want, so I told them it was no go, 
I would not accept the position. We were 
in the company office at the time, the three 
owners and myself. As we were arguing, 
after my refusal, I noticed out of the tail 
of my eye, one of them turn the key in the 
door lock and then put the key in his 
pocket. There was an old Winchester rifle 
hanging on the wall and this fellow sat 
down on a chair within easy reach of it. 
Another was within close touch with a 

88 



heavy metal seal that stood on a table some- 
what behind me — and I was arguing w^ith 
the other fellow. 

Finally this fellow said, "Well, there's 
no use arguing. You don't want the job 
and we don't want you ; just cough up that 
fifty dollars and then get to hell out of 
here." As he gave this defi I could see the 
others nail their weapons and the spokes- 
man reached inside his shirt for his navy. 
But they never made connection. Before 
they knew I was "on" I had all three of 
them standing in a corner, one of them 
with a lump on his cranium about the size 
of a goose eggy caused by a slight jolt from 
my navy. I then took the Winchester and 
smashed the lock and bent the barrel, took 
the navy out ofthe other fellow's shirt and 
broke the hammer off — and threw the seal 
into the fire ; then I walked out, telling them 
I was going over to the hotel for dinner and 
would be there a couple of hours, that if 
they wanted me they could find me await- 
ing them there. But I never saw one of 
them afterwards. 

CHAPTER XI 

A few days after this a man came 
down from Cincinnati and said the people 
up there wished to see me. So I made ar- 
rangements to go up the following day. 
Meantime I again went to the Ulysses 

89 



townsite office and made a final demand 
for my deeds. I was pretty anxious for I 
had an offer for one of the business lots. 
But I was only wasting time, no deeds 
would be given to any one. 

When I went to Cincinnati the follow- 
ing day I did so more out of curiosity than 
anything else. In riding over I had made 
up my mind that I would pack up and get 
out of the country within the next week and 
let the lots slide. I had done pretty well 
anyhow and had a nice balance in a Kansas 
City bank and a few hundred dollars in the 
Ulysses bank. And as the weather was 
fine the old wanderlust fever had struck 
me and we had discussed the matter at 
home and had decided that we would fix up 
our road outfit in first-class shape and 
strike out towards the north-west. 

When I got to Cincinnati I was sur- 
rounded by the best citizens of the place 
and we had quite a jollification for a time. 
Then I was taken into the backroom of a 
real estate office for a secret meeting with 
the five leaders of the county seat fight. 
Now, as said before, I had no faith in the 
ability of these Cincinnati fellows. They 
had botched up everything from the day 
they located their little shanty within less 
than 30 feet of the section they wanted it 
on and expected it was on. Thus they had 
lost the pivotal location — the geographical 

90 



center of the county. Next, they had 
bungled in getting title to section sixteen 
and had allowed the Ulysses townsite com- 
pany to get the best quarter of the section 
— all of this pertaining to Surprise. 

Finally they had made the egregious 
blunder of pocketing the relinquishments 
of the claims upon which they had removed 
from Surprise. That was the greatest 
blunder of all and showed a lack of brains 
that was past my understanding in peo- 
ple who had the reputation of being good 
business men. But these people were 
pretty well fixed and were hanging on, I 
think, more for the fun of beating Ulysses 
than with the expectation of making a 
dollar. Indeed, the only profit for any per- 
son in the Cincinnati townsite would be the 
profit on two lots, one for business and one 
for a residence site — and these he would 
have to occupy. 

These fellows were game, however, and 
they put up a fine fight. The business they 
had with me convinced me that they were 
dead in earnest, that they were going to 
carry the fight through to the end — and 
they had a few thousand dollars in sight — 
with as much more as they chose to use 
within easy reach. They were fools as to 
the land laws but otherwise shrewd busi- 
ness men, men I liked to talk to. I had 
known none of them more than casually 

91 



heretofore but I was greatly impressed 
with them in every way. 

I am not going to give the details of the 
deal I made with them; but I went home 
with so much money that my wife thought 
I had robbed a bank. I soon parted with it 
by sending it off to swell my Kansas City 
account. I did not dare ship it from 
Ulysses, so I sent my wife up to Garden 
City where such a shipment would not be 
noticed. 

The following day I went to the Ulys- 
ses townsite manager and told him I was 
going to move my gallery and other goods 
and chattels over to Cincinnati the second 
morning following, as I had made a deal to 
stand with them through the county seat 
fight. He told me I had another think 
coming as I would not be allowed to haul 
the building from a lot to which they held 
title. I retorted that I might not be allow- 
ed to do it but I was going to do it just the 
same. In conclusion I said, "I am going to 
pack my stuff in that building, put skids 
under it and get it all ready tomorrow ; the 
next morning at 8 o'clock I am going to 
hitch my team to it, "all alone by myself," 
and haul it over to my future home in Cin- 
cinnati." 

To this he made no retort. I made no 
threats as to what I would or would not do 
if interfered with. But I knew mighty 

92 



well there would be no trouble. So the 
next day we abandoned the claim which 
we had sold and brought our stuff in and 
put it in the gallery building and my wife, 
my children and myself spent the next 
night there. 

On the following morning I was up 
early and noticed a good deal of a stir in 
town, but I paid no attention to anybody, 
just kept busy with my moving arrange- 
ments. I noticed by looking up the road 
that quite a large party of Cincinnati peo- 
ple were lined up just outside the Ulysses 
town limits; but I had told them that un- 
der no circumstances must one of them 
come into the town to assist me in any way. 

As the hour of 8 approached the Ulys- 
ses people began to gather around my place, 
but I paid no attention to them. Some of 
the boys were on horseback and occasion- 
ally a party of six to a dozen would go 
whooping and racing up or down the street, 
shouting and shooting off their guns. 
Sometimes such a party would start at top 
speed towards Cincinnati; but they would 
stop short inside the Ulysses limits. 

At 8 o'clock to the minute I said "gid- 
dap" to my team and my building slid si- 
lently off of its old location and into the 
street. My wife and children were inside 
looking out the windows, 1 was astride the 
nigh wheelhorse, as I had six horses in my 

93 



team. As we moved on the people began 
to circle around in front of us, hooting and 
yelling and firing their guns and the horse- 
men went rushing up the road as if they in- 
tended to charge the Cincinnati contingent. 
But they stopped short before getting very 
close; while the Cincinnati fellows quietly 
stood their ground. 

Quietly, slowly, without a spoken v/ord 
from any member of my family or myself, 
we moved on and on until we finally came 
to the town limits. As the nose of the lead 
horse got to the line the Cincinnati party, 
now swelled to about 150 mounted men, 
began to move towards me; but I halted 
them quickly and ordered them to stand 
still until my "wagon" was for sure on 
alien land — and not another movement was 
made until I was about half way through 
the line of horsemen. There I halted and 
yanking out my navy I fired a salute, the 
forerunner of such a fusilade from the 
firearms of my friends as I had never heard 
before in my life. 

Almost instantly a dozen American 
flags were raised, the one I had flying from 
the peak of the gallery was seized by a 
man (how he ever got up there I never 
could tell) and he sat down astride the roof 
as a color bearer — a drum gave the signal, 
the band struck up "Lo, the conquering 
hero comes,'' my wife, the children and I 

94 



were picked up and placed upon a sort of 
platform borne by four horses — and soon 
we made our triumphal entry into the 
''city" of Cincinnati, where we were feast- 
ed and feted as if we were of royal blood. 

Then came speechmaking, during 
which my building was safely placed upon 
a foundation on one of the best lots in town 
and soon my wife was busy taking pictures 
of some of the scenes. 

CHAPTER XII 

Nothing breeds trouble oftener than 
idleness and this was proven all through- 
out Western Kansas at the time I am writ- 
ing of. There was very little work to do 
on the claims, "farms'' many called them. 
Nothing that was planted grew. The only 
work usually of the claim holders was the 
chores where stock was kept but this stock 
usually consisted of a pair of pelter ponies, 
called by courtesy horses. The only occu- 
pation pursued steadily was gambling, 
which was carried on in several places in 
every town day and night. 

The people from the country therefore 
spent the most of their time in town, whei'e 
they were joined by the gamblers and other 
hangers-on who usually followed the gam- 
blers and sporting women. So every town 
looked busy and prosperous when a stran- 
ger drove into the place. The streets were 

95 



well lined with people, the merchants seem- 
ed to be busy, the cry of the game keepers 
could be heard from the gambling houses 
by day and night, and from early evening 
until daylight the call of the dancing leader 
and the music from the cracked piano or 
the notes from the two-dollar "fiddle" made 
night hideous — and the call after each "set'^ 
on the dancing floor — "Gents will escort 
their ^pardners' to the bar," — could be 
heard above the din every few minutes. 

But at times these sports became too 
tame and a lot of the boys, and perhaps 
some of the other sex, by courtesy called 
"girls," would mount their own or hired or 
borrowed ponies and seek excitement in 
neighboring towns where they would ride 
swiftly through the streets, yelling like 
Comanches and shooting off their guns, 
making all the noise they could. This was 
called "shooting up the town," and was 
considered great fun and a great act of 
bravado or courage. 

On one occasion shortly after my re- 
moval to Cincinnati a bunch of the boys at 
the old town of Surprise concluded they 
would "shoot up" our town. So they went 
to a hardware store and bought all the 
cartridges in stock. They were none too 
sober and were getting a little more mud- 
dled all the time from frequent quaffs from 
their bottles. There were about 30 in the 

96 



party and they started hell bent for Cin- 
cinnati. I heard from a distance what was 
going on and decided to stop it if I could. 
So I gathered up my camera, mounted a 
swift horse and met the crowd about half 
a mile above town. I halted them and told 
them I wanted them to stop just a moment 
while I took a picture of the party. After 
a little parleying I got them to line up and 
I took as much time as I dared in posing 
them. It took some time and the devil- 
ment spirit was fast dying out. 

After taking the negative I invited 
them to go with me down to the gallery and 
wait while I developed the negatives, prom- 
ising each one a picture. They followed 
me quietly down to the gallery, patiently 
waited for me until I had the prints ready. 
I passed along the line and gave each of 
them a copy, thanked them for what they 
had done — and they departed peacefully. 
I thus undoubtedly saved a lot of trouble, 
perhaps saved more than one from getting 
hurt — but I had taken a long chance. The 
wonder is that they ever stopped to parley 
with me, that they did not anyhow shoot 
my horse when I halted them. Our news- 
paper gave me a long notice and called it 
an act of bravery. It was not bravery — 
just good, sound judgment. 

The time now was sort of between hay 
and grass, so far as county organization 

97 



was concerned.. We were awaiting the 
governor's action in appointing an enumer- 
ator. A petition had been sent to him 
signed by a large number of people asking 
this and we knew action would soon be 
taken. At this time there were three 
towns contesting for the county seat, Ulys- 
ses, Cincinnati and Shockeyville. The 
latter town was off to the west and had no 
chance, so we did not take them seriously. 
However there was a chance that the vote 
might be split up quite evenly between the 
two principal towns and thus let Shockey- 
ville slip in by getting a large majority of 
the country votes. 

To circumvent this the two townsite 
companies were giving away lots right and 
left. Our trouble in Cincinnati was a lack 
of title. The Ulysses people had a good 
title all right but they were giving prom- 
ises and not deeds. Nearly every voter in 
the county had thus become the owner of 
from one to a half dozen town lots — in 
promises. If we could have realized some 
cash from these promises it would have 
suited the most of us pretty well. So far 
as I was personally concerned I did not care 
a whoop. I was pretty well hooked up 
financially, had a good balance in a bank in 
Kansas City and another in Garden City, 
and was taking in enough to live on and 
more right along. But you can bet nobody 

98 



but my family knew I had any money any- 
where to my credit. 

Quite soon after I arrived in Cincin- 
nati one of the members of the city council 
resigned at the request of a number of the 
leading citizens and I was elected in his 
place. Then the mayor wanted to resign 
so that I might become mayor. I would 
not consent to this. I was willing to act 
as leader but did not wish to be the legal 
head of the city affairs. But almost from 
the first I had to shoulder about all of the 
responsibility. 

For a time things became very quiet, 
so I thought I would go over into one of the 
counties to the north and see how they 
were getting along, thinking perhaps I 
might pick up a piece of money — anyway I 
knew by taking my camera along I could 
more than pay expenses, while my wife 
could run the gallery at home. I arrived 
at the town just a few days before the elec- 
tion for county seat and county officials 
was to come off, as the enumeration had 
been made and the preliminary officials ap- 
pointed. I went to the town that had been 
designated as the temporary county seat. 

The morning following my arrival as 
I sat at the breakfast table in the hotel I 
heard a distant roar of firearms and knew 
in a moment that a crowd from the rival 
town was swooping down on us. Every- 

99 



body in our dining room had been disarmed 
as we entered, that being a rule of the 
house as expressed on a showcard — "All 
guests must check their firearms as they 
enter the dining room/' But it did not 
take us long to get our "guns" and make 
for the street — as quick as we were we 
were too late to see just what had happen- 
ed or how it had happened, but there rush- 
ing like mad up and down the street were 
seven riderless horses and scattered along 
the street were seven dead bodies. 

As I did not have any interest in the 
matter and did not wish to be detained as a 
witness and sent to the county seat of the 
nearest organized county, where the trials 
would be held, I quietly mounted my horse 
and rode for home. I had not made any 
money but I had learned another lesson in 
the history of county seat fights. 

A day or two after my return I was 
sitting in a law office looking over some 
papers and occasionally looking out on the 
street. Just opposite was a saloon and I 
could see the proprietor and his bartender 
were taking the shells from their guns. 
Pretty soon they strapped their guns on 
and started out. I went down to see what 
their little game was. They went into a 
rival thirst emporium and throwing their 
guns down on the barkeep they ordered 
him to set out the bottle. They drank 

100 



what they wanted and threw the bottle on 
the floor. Then the operation was repeated 
and another bottle smashed — and a third 
and fourth and several more. 

After they had taken all they wanted 
they showed the barkeep that their guns 
were minus cartridges. ''Well/' said the 
barkeep, "when those guns looked me in 
the face I did not take the trouble to see if 
they were loaded, I didn't inspect them for 
bullets; I just came across as ordered." 
The tw^o then returned to their own saloon. 
There was a "tender-foot" sitting on a keg 
in the back of the barroom. He had on a 
broad-brimmed hat, trying to put on a cow- 
boy appearance, but he lacked the ear 
marks. The bartender went over to him 
and took his hat and put it on his own 
head, he then walked back to the rear 
and sat down and ordered the proprietor 
to shoot a few holes in it. The proprietor 
leveled his gun and pulled the trigger but 
the shot was too low and went crashing 
through the bartender's skull, killing him, 
or rather he died the following morning, 
having never regained consciousness. I 
went to the shooter and got his guns and 
took him in charge until the arrival of the 
sheriff, just as the man was breathing his 
last the following morning, and turned him 
over to the sheriff. The man died, the 
shooter had a preliminary examination and 

101 



was fined five dollars — and the incident 
was closed! 

CHAPTER XIII 

Killings, in "fun" and by accident, oc- 
curred so often that the governor was pe- 
titioned to send a company of militia out 
from Topeka to disarm us and close the 
saloons. They came and we surrendered 
our arms, each giving up any old gun he 
could find but hiding the good ones. I 
gave up one worth about fifteen cents, the 
others did about the same. Finally we 
were all disarmed and the "soldiers" de- 
parted for their homes feeling good over a 
duty well performed, not saying a word 
about the open saloons or the gambling 
houses. Then we got out our real firearms 
and buckled them on and the militia inci- 
dent was closed. 

About this time a young lawyer from 
"back east" came to our town, following the 
advice of Horace Greeley to "go west." 
He stopped at the hotel, and the first night 
he found the vermin called bedbugs pretty 
fierce. So he came to me with his com- 
plaint and I told him he could fix up a bunk 
on the floor of my gallery. He did so. 
Just across the street was a large saloon 
and about midnight the lawyer was awak- 
ened by a fire of artillery in the saloon 
and soon the door burst open and the gang 

102 



rushed out onto the street, shooting and 
yelling and making all the noise they could. 
Then they crossed the street and went 
shooting and yelling around the gallery. 
Some of them fired in under the floor 
where the lawyer was asleep. That was 
too much for him so he got up and dressed 
himself and as soon as the gang left he 
sneaked out into the night and disappeared 
forever from "our midst." 

I was kept tolerable busy all this time 
with my photographic work and what pro- 
fessional business there was in the way of 
relieving the sufferers from corns and 
bunions — scooping in a few dollars here 
and there, about the only one in town 
making and saving any "dough.'' One day 
I had a call to go out to a big ranch and 
take some pictures of buildings and stock. 
At the ranch they had a case of Dr. Bar- 
ter's Bitters, which, next to Hostetter's 
Bitters and Jamaica ginger, was the fav- 
orite drink of the "prohibitionists." They 
were all pretty full when I arrived. I got 
there too late to do anything the first day. 
The next morning a fellow arrived who was 
looking for a claim. He had a boy with 
him, both were pretty green. We worked 
at the pictures during the day and when 
night came the tenderfoot, the boy and my- 
self turned in on the floor, using blankets 
for our bedding. There was a tame coyote 

103 



staked outside. About midnight the cry 
went up from a lot of the cowboys that the 
coyote had got loose and was in the house 
and somebody would be killed. Then the 
guns began to bark, the boys began to yell 
and in the darkness the tenderfoot and his 
boy slipped out and left for parts unknown. 
Like the lawyer, they found western life 
too strenuous. 

Just to the east of us a fight was going 
on that was pretty strenuous, there being 
two pretty good towns and each backed by 
men of some means. I was sent for to go 
over and help them out and as election day 
came I was selected to take charge of one 
of the polling places. Another man from 
our town was there and he was given a 
little money and was stationed near the 
voting place to purchase votes, with a 
friend to see if the voters stayed bought, 
and voted right. I did not get onto the 
whole game until several men were march- 
ed up with a gun close behind them; then 
I quit the job, went and collected my fees 
for a day's work and looked on at the 
alleged election for the balance of the day. 
For I never allowed myself to do any such 
crooked work. Of course I took big 
chances in being "a quitter," but the sooner 
one quits when he finds the game crooked 
the better it is for him. 

On our way home one of our boys got 

104 



pretty hilarious over a few bottles of bit- 
ters and went into a chicken coop by the 
roadside and stole a rooster. This bird de- 
veloped a peculiarity. The new "owner'' 
would place him on his, the "owner's" head, 
and by shaking him up a little he would 
crow. When a crowd was met coming 
from the rival town we were asked which 
town won. The rooster, we told them, 
could answer. So he was placed on his 
possessor's head and the name of the other 
town given, the question asked being "Did 
(blank) win the county seat?" The roos- 
ter was not shaken so did not crow. Then 
he was asked if the other town won and 
being shaken up a trifle he answered with 
a good loud crow. 

When we got back home the next night 
there was a big crowd awaiting us for the 
news. We were escorted to the big hotel 
and I was made custodian of the rooster 
and placing me on a billiard table, with the 
wonderful rooster on my head. Then the 
questions were asked — and at the psycho- 
logical shake of my head the old bird let 
out a lusty crow — which called for another 
round of drinks. And pretty soon the 
room was a bedlam with myself about the 
only sober man there. 

And right here let me say that I never 
have been a prohibitionist nor yet a drink- 
ing man. I have from the time I was a 

105 



young man taken a drink whenever I felt 
like it and could get it, but never in my life 
have I taken enough to become fuddled in 
mind or nerve or muscle. Booze is a bad 
thing, the booze habit a mighty bad habit. 
If I had to live my life over again I would 
cut it out entirely and I would advise all 
young men to do the same — and old ones 
too who cannot do as I can, drink or leave it 
alone. I mean drink in moderation. Many 
a time I have gone for a year or two with- 
out tasting liquor, yet passing saloons 
every day. Then sometimes maybe a 
drink once a month. But never, never to 
excess. Soon the liquor question will be 
settled and settled right, not alone in this 
country but the world over. Old John 
Barleycorn has had his day and the time is 
close at hand when the whole world will be 
"dry.'' And nobody will rejoice over the 
fact more than I. 

But to get back to the ''gang" and the 
rooster. When I found the boys were get- 
ting too hilarious I made an effort to get 
away. That did not please the boys a little 
bit. Finally some of them resorted to 
threats. I never was much of a hand to 
take threats. So I just threw the rooster 
aside and pulling my gun I yelled to the 
crowd, "Deveney is going home, is going 
home right now; stand aside and make 
room for him to pass out." And I went 

106 



quietly and peaceably. No resistance 
whatever was manifested — and I know 
every mother's son of them respected me 
for my actions. 

Not a quarter of an hour after my de- 
parture by some mischance one of my best 
friends was shot through the calf of the 
leg, a mere flesh wound. He came over to 
my place and I took him home and dress- 
ed the wound the best I could, there being 
no surgeon at hand. One did come, how- 
ever, later that night and dressed the 
wound again. The next morning I was 
summoned away and left early, with my 
friend apparently all right — in three days 
I came back to find him dying. I sat at his 
bedside and he told me he had a good 
mother living back in Missouri and he 
wanted her notified and his property pro- 
tected until she could arrive. So he ^dic- 
tated a dispatch and almost with the last 
words of his life he sent a message to the 
mother who had not heard from her wan- 
dering boy for a dozen years. He was not 
a bad fellow. Indeed he was one of our 
best and straightest and most prosperous 
citizens. But with the wild surroundings 
he had neglected his mother, thinking, 
always thinking, that he would wait until 
he had a fortune and he could go home and 
be a pride to that dear old mother. 

Boys, don't act like that. Why that 

107 



dear old mother would have welcomed, 
doubly welcomed, that son had he returned 
in rags. I met her when she came to our 
little town a week after her son's death to 
take the body home and see that someone 
was selected to take charge of the prop- 
erty. I tried to comfort her, tried to as- 
sure her that Sam had been a good boy, a 
fine citizen — tried to make her feel proud 
of her son. So did many others of the 
townsmen. But her grief was something 
terrible. She was a fine woman, pure, 
sweet, lovely and lovable.. As she left on 
the stage, riding in the same conveyance 
as casket containing the body of her be- 
loved son, I sat beside her for a few mo- 
ments and tried to again give her words of 
comfort. Soon our tears mingled and she 
sobbed out simply the words, "My son, my 
son." Those words are ringing in my ears 
to this day. 

Shortly after this trouble arose be- 
tween two of the leading citizens of Cin- 
cinnati, one our postmaster the other the 
would-be boss of the tov/n, who was the 
leading merchant of the place. The trouble 
arose over one of them taking a little too 
great an interest in the domestic affairs of 
the other. So the merchant strapped on 
his guns and started out after the post- 
master. I met him and he told me he was 
going gunning for the p. m. So I told the 

108 



latter that he had better look out He re- 
plied that he would be ready in a moment. 
Pretty quick he stepped out just as the 
merchant came up and they drew their 
guns and there seemed to be but one re- 
port as both were fired. The postmaster 
dropped but the merchant was not hurt. 
We carried the p. m. in and found he had 
been creased just at the top of his fore- 
head and was senseless. We washed him 
and sewed up the wound before he regain- 
ed consciousness. As soon as he was con- 
valescent he wound up his affairs, resigned 
from his office and left. The life was too 
strenuous for him. 

From the day of my arrival in Cin- 
cinnati I had been engaged, clandestinely, 
in trying to have the people get title to the 
land. I finally succeeded in having the 
contestants withdraw and dismiss their 
suits and we made a filing on the land un- 
der the government townsite laws. This 
was a great coup for Cincinnati, and I had 
accomplished it without spending any 
money or antagonizing anybody. Of 
course it cut out the speculators, left no 
profit only to the holders of lots. But it 
gave the town a standing in the final coun- 
ty seat contest, placed us on a solid basis 
and there was a small chance that we might 
win out on the final election. 

The matter of titles soon cropped out 

109 



for every lot holder wanted a patent to his 
particular holding. These matters came 
before the city council and were adjusted 
satisfactorily except in three cases. In the 
meantime our terms expired, the election 
came on and I refused to run for any office. 
But when the election came off my name 
was written on enough ballots to elect me 
by the highest vote cast. So I accepted 
and took my seat with the rest of them. 

CHAPTER XIV 

There came before us at once one of 
these vexed questions, and one of the con- 
testants was a particular personal friend 
of mine. I could see that a job had been 
put up on him and that the other contest- 
ant, a doctor, would get the lots, although 
his claim was absolutely unjust. I told my 
friend there was a plot against him but he 
could not believe it. Everybody in town 
knew where I stood on the question, knew 
that I was bound to see fair play. But 
about that time I was taken slightly sick 
and sent for the doctor — and he doctored 
me good and plenty. I never knew what 
he gave me but pretty soon I was helpless. 
While I was ill our little girl was taken 
sick — soon the doctor had her in the same 
helpless condition as I was "enjoying." 
The fellow was simply poisoning both of 
us. One day he came and I openly accus- 

110 



ed him of "doping" me and he could scarce- 
ly deny it. He flippantly said, "You must 
think I am Jesus Christ to cure you so 
quickly." The tone in which he said it 
angered me and I tried to get my wife to 
fetch my gun, for I had just about 
strength enough left in my arms to use a 
gun. But he got away and I stopped tak- 
ing his medicine, as did also my daughter, 
and in a couple of weeks I was well and 
attending to business. 

I had intimated to some that there was 
a settlement due between the doctor and 
myself and that I would bring it off just as 
soon as I had regained my strength. Hear- 
ing of this the doctor withdrew rather 
suddenly — so suddenly that he left some of 
his personal property behind which he 
never came back to claim. 

While things were running along 
rather smoothly in Cincinnati and many of 
our citizens were felicitating themselves 
that now, since the settling of the titles to 
our loss, we were sure to have our town 
selected as the permanent county seat. 
The election was coming on apace. The 
temporary appointees were candidates for 
re-election and Cincinnati had candidates 
for nearly all the offices. I was importun- 
ed to allow the use of my name for county 
sheriff, about the best office in the county 
—even some of the leading men of Ulysses 

113 



said they would support me and get me a 
good vote i^ their town if I would run. 
But I refused. I did not want any little 
county office in a county where the fees 
would not keep my family in flour, or my- 
self in cigars. So I stubbornly refused. 

As to hopes of Cincinnati becoming the 
county seat— I knew there was no chance 
of that coming to pass, not a ghost of a 
chance. It is funny how people will allow 
themselves to think the impossible will hap- 
pen. Anybody with a grain of sense in the 
county could plainly see that we would be 
beaten two to one. When things were in 
that condition, about a couple of months 
before the election was to be held, a com- 
mittee awaited on me one day and told me 
there was to be a meeting held about three 
o'clock the following morning in a back 
room of one of the citizens who approach- 
ed me. He gave me the names of those 
who would be present and they were all 
friends of mine, so I had no fear of a trap. 

I was there at the appointed time and 
soon found that there were three stran- 
gers also present, one of whom I recogniz- 
ed as a thug from Dodge City. These 
three "gentlemen'^ had not shown up in 
town the day before so it was evident they 
had slipped in during the early morning 
hours. Sure enough, it soon developed 
that they got there about two o'clock, while 

114 



our meeting was fixed for an hour later. 

The windows to the room were cover- 
ed over with blankets, no light was visible 
from the outside and we were cautioned 
to talk in low tones. Then the one acting 
as chairman spoke up and said a plan had 
developed among some of them to capture 
the county seat for sure and that these 
three men had been selected to carry out 
the details; that if they did so they were 
to receive $1000, which fund each one pres- 
ent was supposed to contribute to the 
amount of $100. I was asked to put my 
name down with the others, but I told 
them I would not until I knew what the 
plan was. After endeavoring to get me 
to sign blindly and failing they hinted that 
three of the leaders of the other side were 
to be inveigled to attend a meeting in the 
back room of the Ulysses bank a night or 
two later and that while there the three 
thugs present were to pounce in upon them 
and knock them senseless, then gag them, 
then rob the bank and flee, with their pris- 
oners, down into the Neutral Strip, now 
Oklahoma.. 

I at once and mighty firmly declined 
to have anything to do with any such a 
game. I was mad clear through. I told 
them it was the craziest scheme I had ever 
heard of, that there wasn't a chance in a 
thousand for it to succeed — if it did it 

115 



would cut no part in the result of the elec- 
tion, that we were bound to lose anyhow. 

Then I attempted to leave but one of 
the thugs beat me to the door and drawing 
a knife said he would carve the heart out 
of me or any other traitor who took my 
part. I had two guns with me, two 45s and 
both fully loaded ; but they were of no use. 
I knew mighty well that I must win by 
bluff and nerve if I expected to get out of 
there alive. 

So I said, in a calm, firm voice, some- 
thing like this; "You fellows must think I 
am a dammed fool to run into a trap set 
for me like this — but I am in no trap, you 
are the guys that are trapped, you Cin- 
cinnatians and these thugs from Dodge, 
these man killers who never killed any- 
body but cripples, children and women — 
and shot or stabbed them in the back. 
Why, I knew when you bums left Dodge, 
I can tell the hour you left the railroad to 
come down here, I know where your rig is 
hitched this minute. And — and you want 
to listen to this, listen to it closely ; I stand 
here with my back to the wall, as you see. 
I am facing every one of you. I have my 
hand on my gun, but I am not going to use 
it. But at the sound of the first discharge 
of a gun in this room a dozen friends, arm- 
ed to the teeth, will rush to that door and 
batter it down — and may God have mercy 

116 



on your souls for not one of you will get 
away for the boys are armed with shot 
guns loaded with buckshot; shall I give the 
signal?" 

There was no answer for a moment. 
Then I turned loose and called them all of 
the curs and cowards I could think of. I 
finally said, "I will make just one con- 
cession to you scalawags, and I do that to 
save a semblance of a name for the town. 
You ship these bums back to Dodge, ship 
them at once, right now. Then we citizens 
of Cincinnati will go to our homes, I will 
call off my waiting army and tell them it 
was a false alarm — and then not a word 
must be said about this meeting to a living 
soul in the town — not a word; is it a bar- 
gain?" 

And it was. I was allowed to go and 
within a half hour I saw, as I watched 
through a window, the Dodge thugs sneak- 
ing out of town. And then I began to get 
scared. A cold sweat broke out all over 
me, my legs refused to hold me up and I 
settled down all in a heap, to remain un- 
conscious until long after daylight. 

CHAPTER XV 

I can tell you that incident set me to 
thinking whether the game I was playing 
was worth the candle that I might gain. 
I knew that the days of prosperity were 

117 



about over for Grant County until the old 
settlers had left and new ones would come 
in. And that would take years and years. 
(It took nearly 30). The mortgage com- 
panies were no longer loaning money, 
practically everybody was broke. I believe 
I was better fixed than any man in the 
county except about half a dozen cattle 
owners. 

What sort of a life were we living? 
Just a dog's life. The town was filled with 
thugs and gamblers, the saloons were run- 
ning night and day, shooting scrapes were 
of daily or nightly occurrence, painted 
women ogled children and decent women 
on the streets and made their brags that 
this and that woman's husband thought 
more of them than of his wife. 

What was the use of living in such so- 
ciety under such conditions? Then again 
I would say to myself, "Deveney, you must 
remain until law and order is established, 
you must remain until this county seat 
question is settled — then you can go. 
After talking it over with my wife I de- 
cided that it would be best to remain until 
after the electijion. But about then the 
poison that doctor had got into my system 
began to work on my nerves and I got 
weak and almost a wreck. But I hung on, 
getting thinner, weaker and weaker. 

Then the election came oflf and we were 

118 



beaten four to one, four to one. No soon- 
er had the polls closed than I went to a few 
of my best friends and said to them. 
"Now look here — we are beaten, we are 
beaten, we are down and out for good and 
for fair. Ulysses has won, has won honest. 
Let us bury the hatchet and go over and 
tell them of it, go over in a body with white 
flags, flags of surrender, flying and tell 
them from this day on we are with them 
for the upbuilding of the county. 

And we did. We moreover told them 
that the best thing that could happen 
would be for the newly elected officers to 
rigidly enforce the law against selling 
liquor, against gambling, against all forms 
of vice. And within a month the rowdies, 
both male and female, had all departed, and 
feeling that my work was done I collapsed, 
went all to pieces. 

Then we got out the old wagon, hitch- 
ed four good horses to it and I was placed 
upon a bed inside. For two months, while 
we were traveling from 20 to 25 miles a 
day, I lay there, just a living skeleton, some 
of the time unconscious, some of the time 
raving. 

We wended our way back to our old 
neighborhood near Hastings, Nebraska. 
As soon as I got quieted down and got a 
good physician I began to mend and within 

119 



three or four months I had my health fully 
restored. 

Then we again hitched up, loaded the 
family and a little personal property in the 
wagon and set out for the Pacific Coast 
In the spring of 1893 we arrived in Port- 
land, Oregon, and that will be my home as 
long as I live — but when the old wanderlust 
fever comes on I will have to do as I am 
doing now — take a little journey of a few 
thousand miles. 



;!''4i0 4'^ 



120 



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